Did you know Brad Pitt’s making a zombie flick called World War Z in Hungary? Is that a sure sign that the whole zombie craze has jumped the ocean-roaming carnivorous predator? Be that as it may, the production seems to be having…issues. Sure, it’s behind schedule and over budget, but what movie doesn’t have those problems? More significantly, World War Z’s managed to attract the attention of Hungary’s anti-terrorism officials. A Hungarian SWAT team raided a Budapest warehouse that was supposedly holding prop guns for the movie. Only they weren’t props….
Police seized 85 fully-functional weapons, most of which were automatic, military-style assault rifles. “We can confirm that weapons were confiscated at an airport,” Hajdu Janos and Zsolt Bodnar, the director and deputy director of Hungary’s Anti-Terrorism Unit, tell Us.
The problem, a source says, is that the guns came with paperwork claiming they were non-functional — but they’re actually in working order.
“This morning a private plane brought guns wrapped in a parcel from a company to an individual [in Budapest],” Janos and Bodnar add. “Guns like these are highly illegal to transport even if they were to used as stage guns, which hopefully they weren’t.”
Someone should probably do some splainin to the Hungarian law enforcement community. Has anyone seen the propmaster? Using fully-functioning guns on a movie set might be dangerous, dontcha think? The production company’s insurance carrier is probably burning up the phone lines trying figure out exactly WTF is going on over there.
But whatever happens, let’s not blame Brad.
Pitt’s company, Plan B Entertainment, is producing “World War Z.” It is scheduled for a December 2012 release.
According to a source, Pitt, 47, isn’t to blame for the prop problem. “The movie company’s employees must have made a mistake bringing the guns in without the Anti-Terrorism Unit’s permission.”
I’m sure that’s all it is. Just a silly mistake. Some doofy production assistant just dialed the wrong number and managed to buy live firearms from God-knows-where and have them flown in on a private plane instead of ordering disabled movie prop guns from a reputable production company supplier. Move along. Nothing to see here.
The FBI is also in the movie biz, apparently: http://www.eonline.com/news/the_awful_truth/why_fbi_after_clint_eastwood/268292?utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=imdb_topstories
Those cop actors have great finger control, the guy on the right looks like he is just holding down the trigger.
Given Hungary’s proximity to the FRY (Former Republics of Yugoslavia), the plethora of weapons is hardly surprising.
Not to mention that the East Bloc military forces were always a bit lax with their weapons control.
um, the WWZ folks brought these weapons from overseas, not the other way around. The reaction of the authorities seems to me as a publicity ploy to use American cultural production as a prop for law enforcement in Hungary, regardless of how dumb it was to bring these fully functional weapons into a foreign country without permission.
For some reason I couldn’t do more than skim the book upon which the movie is based, but I did notice that the author, Max Brooks, offers up some nicely realisic weapons detail. Anyone know if he’s a gun geek?
IMFDB.ORG is going to have a very, very interesting page on this movie!
i read the whole thing, brad pitt has some big shoes to fill, i hope the story is not completely wrecked Hollywood style.
Mistakes like that end up in history books. They’re called bloodbaths. I can’t understand how you get 85 weapons with matching paperwork to each claiming they are non-functional. That essentially says that someone went through a lot of trouble to use the movie prop shipment as cover. Of course that’s of interest on both sides of the ocean but we aren’t asking the ATF and Hungary is likely going to write it off after a while as I’m sure they’ve got other things to do since they have the weapons again.
I think Holder was involved…..but he will never admit to it…..either way the dealer will be blamed.
Umm, what makes you think that the guns used in movies are entirely, or even mostly, non-functioning props? Long Mountain Outfitters is a huge prop gun house and it isn’t due to their huge supply and assortment of fake guns. Isn’t their an exemption in CA gun laws that allows movie prop houses to own machine guns?
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