Manchester’s Northern Quarter, a Second World War battleship and a south London park have cameos in the long-awaited Marvel film Morbius, which stars Jared Leto as a bloodsucking superhero and finally swoops into cinemas this week.
The latest chapter from Sony’s Spider-Man Universe tells the story of Leto’s doctor-turned-vampire Morbius, while Matt Smith plays lifelong pal and arch-nemesis Milo. Although most of the action takes place in the Big Apple, large swathes of the film were shot in the UK in 2019. ‘We had to try and find New York here in the UK’, supervising location manager Josh Coombes explains to i. He found it in some surprising places.
Marvel at a slice of the Big Apple in Manchester
Manchester’s Northern Quarter stood in for the streets of New York. This maze of streets between Piccadilly train station, the shopping district and trendy Ancoats is Manchester’s indie heartland. ‘It resembles Brooklyn – the red-brick buildings, the fire escapes, the warehouses, that post-industrial world’, location manager Dan Connolly tells i. ‘The Northern Quarter still has a grittiness, especially the back streets and alleyways’, says Connolly. ‘So Morbius was skulking around – as his character does – in the back streets, shoulder to shoulder with people staggering out of clubs’.
You might spy Morbius climbing up a wall in Back Piccadilly, while Stevenson Square was flooded with yellow taxi cabs and given a Greenwich Village vibe. It took a month to build a subway station entrance on Port Street. The other attraction of the Northern Quarter is its independent shops, cafes and restaurants: no one wants a branch of Greggs or Starbucks in their big-budget superhero movie. However, eagled-eyed cinema-goers may catch a glimpse of Leo’s Fish Bar on Oldham Street.
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When he wasn’t in front of the camera, Leto put his feet up at ABode Hotel – five suites at this stylish old textile warehouse were used as green rooms. Leto also reportedly had a Michelin-starred takeaway from Stockport’s feted restaurant Where The Light Gets In delivered to the set. There’s no shortage of great grub to be found in the Northern Quarter as well, everything from indie food joints at scrubbed-up market Mackie Mayor to Michelin-starred mana.
It’s not the first time the Northern Quarter has welcomed a superhero; Captain America was also filmed in the Northern Quarter, while the caped crusader’s latest outing, The Batman, was shot in Liverpool and Glasgow.
…and a not-so-central London park
Crystal Palace Park doubled for Central Park. ‘Its balustrades, steps and statues echoed the architecture in Central Park’, supervising location manager Jonah Coombes tells i. ‘And because Crystal Palace is on a hill, we could drop the skyline of New York into the background with visual effects’.
Named after a glass exhibition centre that burnt down in 1936, Crystal Palace Park is probably most famous for the five Victorian dinosaur statues that skulk around its boating lake. As well as bringing in NYPD cop cars and actors, the film crew constructed a fully-functioning replica of Central Park’s iconic fountain.
Keep an eye out for a stunt-packed scene in Black Park in South Buckinghamshire, which also stood in for Central Park. This 530-acre park is popular with movie producers because it’s around the corner from Pinewood Studios, where Morbius was based. Ordinarily, its woodlands, heath and parkland are a lovely spot for a tranquil walk.
Explore Morbius’s battleship
Morbius builds a lab on a container ship to conduct his illegal experiments, and that vessel was HMS Belfast: a Second World War battleship that’s permanently docked on the River Thames, near Tower Bridge. Nowadays it’s an atmospheric museum, where you can discover what life was like in its cramped confines, which include an operating theatre and punishment cells.
The labs of a disused cancer research facility in Dagenham, Science Park, and corridors of Slough’s old Horlicks factory were also used for the container ship scenes. ‘They’re knitted together to create the illusion of being on a boat’, explains Coombes.
…or admire Greek architecture in west London
As a boy, Morbius is a patient at a Greek hospital, which was actually a Greek Orthodox church in Bayswater, Notting Hill – Saint Sophia Cathedral. ‘We used that as a background as it was clearly Greek architecture,’ says Coombes. With its dazzling wall and floor mosaics and Byzantine icons, the interior of Saint Sophia’s is even more impressive.
‘It just so happened that there was a white stucco building with arched windows on the opposite side of the road, and a cobbled street with palm trees around the corner,’ adds Coombes. ‘So it ended up looking like a quite convincing version of Greece.’
Admire London’s swankiest offices
Look out for a hair-raising action scene involving the swirling Art Deco staircase of the Battleship Building, an office near Paddington that was originally built as a maintenance depot for British Rail. ‘That was a difficult one’, says Coombes. ‘I spent a long time trying to find the right place – it had to be somewhere we could do stunts’.
The airy foyer of one of the City’s sleekest office buildings, One London Wall, doubles for an office in New York City. As for that nerve-jangling subway sequence, it was shot in Charing Cross tube station. ‘There’s a section of Charing Cross that’s a training facility’, explains Coombes. ‘It looks like a normal station, but it’s not accessible to the public.’
…and a French chateau in Whitehall
Matt Smith’s Milo’s swanky Upper East Side apartment was filmed at Whitehall Court in Westminster, a grand Victorian pile in the style of a French chateau on the banks of the Thames, near the Houses of Parliament. In the past, it was home to MI5 and a private members’ club frequented by Churchill. It now houses Royal Horseguards, a plush hotel where you can enjoy co*cktails served after former residents in the bar. Perhaps the bartender will add a Bloody Mary in honour of Milo – a Morbius Mary, anyone?
