Film-maker Quentin Tarantino looks like he has burned his bridges with Martin, after an historic 19th century guitar was smashed to smithereens during the filming of his new movie, The Hateful Eight.
The guitar is smashed – in the style of Bluto in Animal House – by actor Kurt Russell in a film scene, leaving the Martin guitar company, who had loaned them the guitar from its museum in good faith, non-plussed to say the least.
“We were informed that it was an accident on set,” said Dick Boak, director of the museum. “We assumed that a scaffolding or something fell on it. 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 artefact from the Martin Museum.
“As a result of the incident, the company will no longer loan guitars to movies under any circumstances,” Boak confirmed.
