Glasgow Covered 23 Murals So Batman Could Film Again

Glasgow spent three weeks from 18 August 2026 as Gotham City for The Batman: Part II, with more than 20 streets shut and 23 murals painted out. The billed city-centre unit is over. Artists were still booked to restore the Kingston Bridge pillars through 5 October 2026, while Warner Bros Pictures now dates the film for 18 February 2028.

That is a long way from the November 2025 scout stills. Production designer Luke Hull posted Glasgow Cathedral and Anderston railway station. The cameras that arrived in August pointed at Bothwell Street, the Kingston Bridge and a river edge that had to keep working around them.

The Shoot Used Bothwell Street, Not the Cathedral

Cameras on The Batman: Part II started on 12 June 2026, months later than the January 2026 start once floated in pre-production. Matt Reeves, who wrote the script with Mattson Tomlin, had already lost years to the 2023 Hollywood strikes and a long rewrite. Most interiors sit at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden in Hertfordshire, the same complex that housed the first film.

Hull, whose credits include Emmy-winning work on Chernobyl and Andor, was in Glasgow by late November 2025. His photographs showed cathedral stone and the concrete around Anderston station, the Gothic mix Reeves has called “a very special Gotham.” Those two landmarks defined the first film’s last act in February 2020. They were not the streets named on the August 2026 traffic orders.

The Glasgow unit, billed at three weeks from 18 August, was concentrated on Bothwell Street, Wellington Street, Pitt Street, North Street and Newton Street under the Kingston Bridge. Crews also took Glasgow Bridge, the Broomielaw and National Cycle Network Route 75 along the Clyde, on the same corridor as a £25m plan for the Clyde waterfront. Liverpool had already hosted a technical recce from 20 May, then a week of work around the old Birkenhead Tunnel from 20 July, before snow work on Runcorn’s Silver Jubilee Bridge.

Robert Pattinson returns as Batman, with Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright and Jayme Lawson. Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Charles Dance, Brian Tyree Henry and Sebastian Koch join them. Whether any of those names walked Bothwell Street is not confirmed. The metal that did was the Batmobile, lowered onto the grid and driven into an underground car park off St Vincent Street on 17 August.

More Than 20 Streets Took the Traffic Bans

Glasgow City Council posted orders that ran far beyond the three billed shooting weeks. Waiting, loading and pedestrian bans stacked from 2 August into late September, and not every closed kerb was for this film. Other crews were in the city centre in the same window. During “action,” people on foot were kept off the named streets and only emergency vehicles could move.

THE AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER ORDERS

The event road restrictions listed by the council are the public record of where Gotham actually sat. On 28 and 29 August, Bothwell Street closed at night between Pitt Street and Hope Street, and Traffic Scotland logged heavy eastbound queues on the M8 Junction 19 off-ramp. The car-park ban under the Kingston Bridge ran to 29 September, which is why the disruption outlasted the clapperboard.

Artists Are Painting the Kingston Bridge Back

The loudest fight was not about taxis. It was about paint. In May 2026, SWG3’s Yardworks GRID project put 23 murals on the Kingston Bridge pillars, paid through the council’s City Centre Mural Fund and Minor Improvements Grants. The artists included Phill Blake, Mr Cenz, Conzo Throb, Mikhaela Martin, Molly Hankinson, Emsky, Aroe and others. By 11 August those pillars were being rolled over in flat grey so the underpass could read as Reeves’ winter city.

The collision was obvious on the day the rollers came out. The same local authority had signed off a public art scheme and a film takeover on the same concrete, months apart, and the first thing the sequel needed from GRID was a blank wall. Laura Frood of SWG3 said the production had told the venue the original work did not match the film’s look, then put up the money for every artist to come back.

The murals are being covered as part of the forthcoming film production and the production company will cover all the costs of reinstatement. SWG3 has remained involved in the project and artists will be undertaking the reinstatement immediately after filming is over.

Glasgow City Council spokesman, August 2026

Photographers were back under the bridge by 16 September. Aroe finished a piece titled Norm, a tribute to a friend who died in 2019, and put a small Batman mark on it as a nod to the shoot that had just used the pillars. The restore was booked through 5 October 2026. Warner Bros pays. The May pictures still spent August as grey set dressing.

Glasgow Has Played Gotham for Nolan and Reeves

Reeves already knew the city. In February 2020 his first Batman film used the Necropolis, Glasgow Cathedral, John Knox Street and Cathedral Square for the closing motorcycle run. He later said the production could well be “coming back to your neighbourhood soon.” It did, after The Flash also dressed Glasgow as Gotham and after Batgirl shot a whole feature here that Warner Bros Discovery then killed.

HOW THE CITY BECAME A STANDING GOTHAM

1. 2012: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises uses Glasgow as Gotham.
2. February 2020: Reeves films the first Batman ending around the Necropolis and Cathedral Square.
3. 2021 to early 2022: Batgirl shoots entirely in Glasgow, then is scrapped unreleased.
4. 2023: The Flash returns to the same Gothic streets.
5. November 2025: Luke Hull scouts Glasgow Cathedral and Anderston station for the sequel.
6. 18 August 2026: The Part II street unit starts a billed three weeks on the grid and the Kingston Bridge.

Batgirl still sits on that list as a warning, not a footnote. It was the first major feature shot entirely in the city. A King Street shop, Social Recluse, shut for 10 days in January 2022 and received £1,000, which the designer Robert Chambers said did not cover the lights. The council had agreed a £150,000 incentive for Warner Bros that was never paid once the film vanished. Part II did not repeat that whole-city occupation. It still asked a live centre to go dark on cue.

What the Film Office Counts in Local Spend

Glasgow Film Office sells the city as a one-stop shop for crews who need an American grid without leaving the UK. A council spokesman, asked about the Batman traffic, pointed to heritage buildings and the city centre’s street pattern, then added that UK television, not Hollywood, is the regular work that keeps local crews in jobs. The daily filming charge of £1,346 for commercial drama in 2026/27 sits in the council book of charges, with temporary traffic orders from £3,069 and a minimum £2,000 bond for damage.

DIRECT LOCAL FILM SPEND, COUNCIL FIGURES

• 2021: £42.2 million, the year The Batman, The Flash and Indiana Jones landed.
• 2022: £57.7 million, the record year lifted by the whole-city Batgirl shoot.
• 2023 to 2025: £22.2 million, then £21.9 million, then £22.1 million, a lower plateau.
• Five-year total to 2025: £166.1 million, with about half a billion claimed over 25 years.

Those numbers come from productions that report spend to the Film Office, so they miss jobs that never file. They also show what a cancelled Batgirl year looks like next to a normal one. David O’Reilly, location manager on the first Batman film and on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, has called the Glasgow office among the best in the UK and said its help around the Necropolis was “essential.” The August 2026 orders show the other half of that bargain: the office can open the grid, and the grid then closes to everyone else.

Fake Snow and a City Clerk Sign on Wellington Street

Reeves has said the sequel is a freezing Gotham winter. Glasgow got the weather on cue, then got the extra layer from the art department. By mid-August the centre was already dressed, before the first billed shooting day.

WHAT THE UNIT PUT ON THE STREETS

• The car: Pattinson’s muscle Batmobile, filmed moving into a St Vincent Street car park on 17 August and later run on snow.
• The station: Bavaria Brauhaus on Wellington Street dressed as the Office of the City Clerk of the City of Gotham, with dollar prices on a nearby food truck.
• The police: Gotham Police cars, SWAT trucks and a GCPD motorcycle later seen again in London.
• The utilities: A Gotham Water and Power van, plus bus shelters carrying Gotham timetables.
• The label: Unit vehicles marked Semper Vigilans, the working title used on the Glasgow permits.

Stunt teams tested the car on snow-covered tarmac. A lighting rig stood in for a helicopter searchlight. Fans stood behind barriers on Bothwell Street with Gotham signs. The pictures that travelled were the car and the snow. The civic bill was the paint and the cones.

Warner Bros Now Dates the Film for February 2028

Warner Bros Pictures and DC Studios moved The Batman: Part II to 18 February 2028 on 15 July 2026, off an 1 October 2027 slot, after earlier dates of 3 October 2025 and 2 October 2026. The studio said Reeves gets more time in post-production after a shoot that began about five months late, and the new date lands on a four-day US holiday weekend, in IMAX. The 2022 film took $770.3 million worldwide. Michael Giacchino is back on the score. Erik Messerschmidt, who has shot for David Fincher, takes over from Greig Fraser on camera.

London streets were used as well as Leavesden, Liverpool, Runcorn and Glasgow. Plot remains closed. Reeves has talked about deeper corruption and a villain he has not named in public, with ties to Bruce Wayne’s past. That material will be judged in 2028. Glasgow’s part is already in the can: three billed weeks, a river wall, a bridge full of grey pillars, and a city that knows the next call from Leavesden will look a lot like this one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Glasgow Host the Scrapped Batgirl Film?

Yes. Batgirl was the first major feature shot entirely in Glasgow, from late 2021 into early 2022, before Warner Bros Discovery scrapped it unreleased after a reported $70 million (£58 million) had been spent. The council had agreed a £150,000 incentive that was never paid, and at least one Trongate shop received £1,000 for a 10-day closure it said did not cover lost January trade.

Who Shot The Batman: Part II After Greig Fraser?

Erik Messerschmidt is the sequel’s cinematographer, replacing Greig Fraser, who shot the 2022 film. Messerschmidt is known for his work with David Fincher. Michael Giacchino remains the composer, and Reeves again produces with Dylan Clark and Lynn Harris, alongside James Gunn and Peter Safran at DC Studios.

What Did Semper Vigilans Mean on Set Vehicles?

Semper Vigilans was the filming label on Glasgow unit cars and trucks, and it was treated on the ground as the production’s working title. The Latin line was visible on vehicles parked under the Kingston Bridge before 18 August. It is not the theatrical title, which remains The Batman: Part II.

Which Glasgow Streets Did the First Batman Film Use?

The 2022 film’s Glasgow work, shot in February 2020, sat around the Necropolis, Glasgow Cathedral, the Royal Infirmary backdrop, Wishart Street, John Knox Street and Cathedral Square. The closing motorcycle run with Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle is the sequence most widely tied to those streets, which is why Hull’s 2025 scout stills of the cathedral read as a sequel tease even though the 2026 unit lived on the western grid.

Under the Kingston Bridge the grey is coming off the pillars on Warner’s bill, and Aroe’s new Batman mark sits on a memorial that the sequel never asked for. The film opens on 18 February 2028. The streets are already back to being Glasgow.