Pittsburgh will be standing in for Gotham City in director Christopher Nolan’s conclude installment of his Batman series of films, The Dark Knight Rises.The office of Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl announced yesterday that the production would be shooting in the city this summer.
In a released statement, Nolan praised the city saying “Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. We have been able to find everything we were looking for here, and I am excited to spend the summer in Pittsburgh with our final installment of Batman.”
Interestingly, with Pittsburgh situated at the intersection of Allegheny and Monongahela rivers and aerial photos, like the one above, are topographically reminiscent of the look of the section of Gotham City known as The Narrows as shown in Nolan’s first Batman film Batman Begins.
Personally, I am thrilled that some portion of the film, and it looks to be a major portion of it, will be shot here in my home state. Granted, I’m at the opposite end of Pennsylvania, but I’m sure that doesn’t preclude a car trip or two west this summer.
Pittsburgh has been used as a location numerous times over the year, including Flashdance, Robocop, Silence Of The Lambs, Stigmata and Dogma. But it has never been used for the production of a big-budget, comic book adaption before. It came close to become another superhero fictional hometown back in the 1990s when Tim Burton choose the city as a location for Metropolis in his ultimately unproduced Superman Lives.
