The Weinstein Company
"The Hateful Eight."
The actor is responsible for destroying a 145-year-old guitar during shooting.
The guitar, which Jennifer Jason Leigh's character plays in one scene until it's snatched by Russell, who then smashes it against a pillar, was a one-of-a-kind Martin from the 1870s that was on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum.
In all fairness, Russell didn't know he was handling an antique in the scene. And according to Dick Boak, the director of the museum, archives, and special projects for C.F. Martin & Co., the production didn't fess up to exactly how the guitar was destroyed.
"We assumed that a scaffolding or something fell on it," Boak told Reverb. "We understand that things happen, but at the same time we can't take this lightly. All this about the guitar being smashed being written into the script and that somebody just didn't tell the actor, this is all new information to us. We didn't know anything about the script or Kurt Russell not being told that it was a priceless, irreplaceable artifact from the Martin Museum."
So what went wrong?
The film's sound mixer, Mark Ulano, filled in SSN Insider:
"What was supposed to happen was we were supposed to go up to that point, cut, and trade guitars and smash the double," according to Ulano, who said six doubles were made of the Martin guitar. "Well, somehow that didn't get communicated to Kurt, so when you see that happen on the frame, Jennifer's reaction is genuine."
Here's the destruction of the Martin in the movie (check out Leigh's reaction at the end):
Boak told Reverb that the museum has been remunerated for the insurance value of the guitar.
But that wasn't enough to heal the matter.
"As a result of the incident, the company will no longer loan guitars to movies under any circumstances," Boak told SSN.
Business Insider contacted Boak to try to get an idea of the value of the destroyed guitar. He said he wouldn't provide more comments about the matter, only stating, "It's not replaceable."