Written by new-contact on May 22, 2014. Posted in On Location

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice starts filming on location in Detroit

New superhero movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has started filming on location in Detroit. Studio work will take place at Michigan Motion Picture Studios and location filming will encompass the city of Detroit, as well as locations in Illinois, Africa and the South Pacific.

The new film is a follow-up to Man of Steel and will pit Henry Cavill’s Superman against Ben Affleck’s Batman. Man of Steel filmed largely in British Columbia and Illinois, with Chicago standing in for Metropolis.

Detroit filming for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was first confirmed in December last year by Warner Bros. Michigan Motion Picture Studios offers seven sound stages ranging in size from 12,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet and previously hosted Sam Raimi’s big-budget fantasy drama Oz: The Great and Powerful.

Michigan’s filming incentive programme was slashed shortly after Raimi’s production wrapped and Detroit in fact filed for bankruptcy in mid-2013. The city still has a generous filming incentive, although the size of the film fund has been up and down. Nonetheless, major recent productions have included Transformers: Age of Extinction and smaller shoots like Low Winter Sun and Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut Lost River have also shot locally.

Detroit still has a generous filming incentive, although the size of the film fund has been up and down.

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan signed off his Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, which used Pittsburgh as a stand-in for Gotham City.

Warner Bros is also filming TV series Gotham on location in New York. The new drama explores the early career of Jim Gordon, the straight-laced detective who eventually goes on to assist Batman as Gotham City’s police commissioner.

To read The Location Guide's interview with Film Detroit, click here.