Matt Damon and Great Wall crew exposed to 'banned chemicals' on set

The cast and crew of new China-shot monster movie ‘The Great Wall’, including stars like Matt Damon, were exposed to dangerous chemicals and poor on-set safety, a report claims.

According to the Wall Street Journal (via The Wrap), one of the producers of the movie said: “How do I look Matt Damon in the face when he’s the only one not wearing a mask?”

And it was not only the notorious pollution in Bejing that was the problem.

The movie’s key grip, Guy Michelett, claims that there were also issues with safety on the set’s construction, with crew ignoring the necessity for harnesses when using scaffolding to rig lights.

“You had to be a policeman,” said Michelett, though the production has reportedly said that he did not work on the shoot itself, and it’s not clear as to whether he was referring to the film’s pre-production period.

Another crew member complained that a chemical spray sealant which is banned on other film sets was being used.

“I nearly passed out from the fumes that came out of a spray can,” said the worker.

The film, which is due out in February, 2017, has been made by director Zhang Yimou, helmsman of epic movies like ‘House of Flying Daggers’ and ‘Hero’, and is produced by the massive Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda, which bought Legendary Entertainment earlier this year, the studio behind Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, ‘Godzilla’, ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Man of Steel’.

Legendary, nor Dalian Wanda, nor Damon’s reps have commented on the reports as yet.

The bulk of the movie was made in Qingdao region, where Dalian Wanda is set to build a sprawling studio complex for China’s rapidly-growing movie industry, also comprising a theme park and resort, as well as a 5000-plus seater cinema complex, costing over $8 billion.

It’s not the first controversy ‘The Great Wall’ has faced thus far.

The movie, which finds Damon battling an ancient creature from Chinese mythology at the Great Wall of China, has been accused of whitewashing, and utilising the ‘white saviour narrative’, in which a white man delivers a foreign masses from peril.

Yimou has personally denied this, saying: “In many ways ‘The Great Wall’ is the opposite of what is being suggested. For the first time, a film deeply rooted in Chinese culture, with one of the largest Chinese casts ever assembled, is being made at tentpole scale for a world audience. I believe that is a trend that should be embraced by our industry.”

Damon, meanwhile, has slammed the notion.

“The whole idea of whitewashing, I take that very seriously,” he said. “It’s a monster movie and it’s a historical fantasy and I didn’t take a role away from a Chinese actor. It wasn’t altered because of me in any way.”

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