Glasgow’s streets can often be found crawling with slow moving shambling zombies, especially at 3 am on a Sunday morning but we have never seen anything like this.
Yes sir, Marc Forster’s World War Z has most definitely rolled into town and we have a heap of stills showing my beloved George Square and it’s surrounding streets undergoing the makeover to transform them into Philadelphia.
With Brad Pitt lurking about, Glaswegians are all aflutter and rightly so. A multi million pound major motion picture being filmed, literally in the centre of town? We don’t get that every day.
Adapted from the novel by Max Brooks, the film has recently come under fire for being unfaithful to the book with the story now revolving around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who “traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.”
Filming is expected to commence tomorrow and continue for two weeks.
Check out the pics below courtesy of our good friend, Iain Lennox. Top guy.
As someone who lives in Philly, this is an awful stand in for the city. The moron who put “Centre City Area” should be exiled from ever working in fils again. Philadelphia doesn’t look like Glasgow in the least. Terrible.
Firstly, the photos on the page are still a work in progress. The full set decoration was not complete at the time of them being taken.
Secondly, thanks for your comment. I have never been to Philly so am in no position to comment.
Thirdly, thanks for visiting.
It’s more than the set decoration. The building structures and design, street layout, and numerous other aspects, unfortunately, don’t look like an American city, let alone one with a fairly recognizeable style. Nothing against Glasgow, as I’m sure it’s a great city to film in. It’s just not Philadelphia.
I think that’s more than fair Joe. I just hope its not that noticeable in the finished film for you.
I know what Joe means, and I’m from glasgow.
It’s comparable to when they shot ‘doomsday’ in south africa, as a stand in for glasgow. it was a ridiculously bad mock-up.
they used glasgow as it’s grid strucure was the basis for a lot of american cities, but I could be wrong, but due to Philidelphia’s age I doubt it follows such a strictly gridded layout, although i could be wrong.
Your comments made me chuckle as this is something that us British folks have had to put up with from American films for quite a while. And not just locations, but accents and other nuances.
Anyone remember Trainspotting needing subtitles?
Definitely doesn’t look like anything like Philadelphia…the buildings here are tiny, the ones in Philadelphia aren’t!!!
I grew up/attended university in Glasgow and now live and own my home in the Philadelphia suburbs. They are both incredible cities, with stunning architecture and with a very real likeness in certain parts. I think the Glasgow set will look tremendous when pulled together with all the other sets used for the movie. Great job and great publicity for two very underrated cities.
Yes there are similarities between City Chambers and City Hall and the vibe is said to be similar also in these 2 cities. Well done Glasgow, the cast and crew have felt very welcome here.