For several weeks in August 2026, parts of Glasgow city centre were transformed for the filming of The Batman: Part II. The production has been taking place largely at night, with the streets becoming Gotham after dark. During the daytime, when I visited on 22 August, I did not see any filming taking place. Instead, what I saw was the aftermath and preparation: barriers, equipment, props, vehicles and an entire street dressed as Gotham.
And, of course, snow.
What caught my attention most was the detail.
The production did not simply bring a few police cars onto the street and call it Gotham. Rows of vehicles carried Gotham City Police Department markings, numbers and fictional licence plates. Buildings and streets were dressed to fit the setting, while artificial snow covered the roads and cars.
There were even bags of magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) sitting around the set, ready to be opened and scattered. It was a small detail, but one that made the artificial winter feel much more real. Seeing the materials waiting to be used gave me a glimpse of the practical work involved in creating an environment that will eventually appear completely natural on screen.
Standing there, it was surprisingly easy to forget that this was still Glasgow.
The architecture underneath was familiar: the stone buildings, the streets and the mixture of older and newer structures that make the city recognisable. But the production had added enough details to create another place on top of it.
One of the most striking things was seeing the number of Gotham police cars gathered together. On screen, a single fictional police car is just part of the world. Seeing an entire street filled with them made the filmmaking process much more tangible.
I also managed to get a close look at one of the cars. Its badge read “City of Gotham Police Department”, complete with a Gotham skyline and bridge. It was a small production detail, but it showed how much effort goes into making a fictional world feel real.
Then there was the snow.
Seeing snow covering a Glasgow street in August was probably the clearest reminder that I was looking at a film set. Everything around me was real, but the environment had been deliberately altered for a story.
That contrast is what I found most interesting.
When watching a finished film, we normally see only the illusion. We see Gotham, not Glasgow. We see a police department, not a collection of vehicles brought in for filming. We see a winter city, without thinking about how that winter environment was created.
During the day, the set almost felt frozen in time, waiting for night to arrive.
The filming has continued into the end of August, with the night-time hours being when the production comes alive. For me, seeing the set during daylight offered a different perspective: not Gotham in action, but the machinery and preparation behind the illusion.
There were barriers, equipment, crew areas, props and people passing by. What might look like an ordinary Glasgow street during the day had been carefully prepared to become something else once the cameras started rolling.
And that is perhaps what makes filming in Glasgow so interesting.
The city does not have to disappear completely to become Gotham. Its existing architecture already provides much of the atmosphere. The production simply adds another layer: police cars, signage, snow, lighting and countless small details.
For a short time, a familiar part of Glasgow became somewhere else.
The barriers will come down. The snow will disappear. The Gotham signs and police cars will leave, and the streets will return to normal.
But on 22 August, standing there in the middle of a Glasgow summer and looking at a snow-covered Gotham City Police car, it was difficult not to feel that Gotham had briefly become real.
Glasgow was Gotham.