Warner Brothers Filming in Berlin
We visited a Warner Brothers filming location and we’re trying to guess what movie they were filming. One guess was The Batman but this may be wrong. We’re now not sure what to think and wanted to share the facts as well as the rabbit hole adventure trying to piece it all together.
The Batman or Matrix
In October of 2020, I was working in Berlin in a building that had a huge old abandoned theatre that was used as a filming location for an unknown big-budget American movie by Warner Brothers. The theatre has been out of use for over 20 years. While the theatre is closed there are cafes and restaurants still in use that are connected on the street level. At the front, these businesses are open to the street but at the back, they share fire escapes that lead into the closed theatre area. I was there for one day working alongside another business and decided to give myself a sneaky little tour of the abandoned theatre.
The old theatre was beautiful with a classic stage and maybe 700 seats and a big balcony. The architecture was Russian and from what I understand it was built by the Russians after WW2. It was used for many years but closed down and sat empty and dusty for many many years. It looked exactly like something you would find on r/abandonedporn.
A person working in the cafe said that the staff all signed agreements not to talk about the filming so I got zero information from them. I did overhear that it was a big-budget American film but that’s all the info I had to go with. I’m a big movie fan so wanted to see if I could guess what movie it was.
At that exact time, The Batman was filming in Liverpool and I remember thinking that the leaked UK locations look similar to this abandoned theatre
in Berlin. Liverpool and Berlin are only a two-hour flight apart so it was a possibility they were filming in two locations during the same time period. More obvious though was the new Matix 4 film which had actually been confirmed as being filmed in Berlin at that same time. I had seen social media posts of Keanu being spotted around town and many media reports of the different filming studios they were working with. Nothing about an old theatre though.
While I was there t
hey had several big trucks and a crew removing some lighting equipment and cleaning up the site. I managed to go unnoticed as there were so many people and everything was over with only cleaning and packing up being done. While walking around I noticed a few things that made me think I was on the set of the new Matrix film. The main clue was the amount of bullet casings lying on the ground. There we
re bullet shell casings so they must have been filming a shoot-out scene. There were maybe 30 bullet shells that I noticed in one area.
When I was about to leave I noticed one set piece that stuck out as it didn’t really fit the Matrix vibe. There was a pile of rubbish with a broken set piece. It was an old-looking movie poster for the film Dial M For Murder. The large poster for the Hitchcock film had been broken into two pieces and left in a rubbish pile.
I later found out there is a Dial M for Murder show being made but at this stage that wasn’t announced nor was Terrence Winter attached. Plus why would they use the original Hitchcock movie poster while filming relaunched version?
I put two and two together and assumed they had turned the old theatre into an old cinema using old movie posters. I had this thought in the back of my head that maybe it wasn’t The Matrix and maybe I was exploring the Monarch Theater or the Janus Theater or another abandoned theatre in the Gotham universe.
I’m a Batman fan and remembered that the Waynes were killed in the alleyway behind the theatre. I also knew that the movie screening at the Monarch was The Mark of Zorro. This was a different movie but something about the similar vibe of older classic films triggered me into thinking this was a Batman set. I know Reeves is going for a Film Noir vibe so maybe swapping out Zorro for Dial M makes sense.
When I got home I started a google deep dive trying to find more info. I first googled Dial M For Murder and noted it was released in 1954. A similar period to when the theatre was originally built. I also googled The Mark of Zorro but found out it was released much earlier in the 1940s.
Again I’m a big Batman fan so I really wanted to see if there were any connections. I admit that maybe at this stage I began to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things but it was certainly a fun ride. So back to the search and I started with Matt Reeves and read many different articles about his work and his inspiration for the new film. After reading and reading I stumbled across one article and almost fainted. It was listing the film references he was inspired by and guess which movie popped up. Dial M for Fucking Murder. After screaming in excitement I was convinced this had something to do with The Batman. A little while later though I went back a reread the article only to find out that through my deep dive I had managed to find articles about his previous films. Dial M For Murder was listed as an influence for his previous film Let Me In and not The Batman.
Link: https://filmschoolrejects.com/4-films-that-inspired-let-me-in-director-matt-reeves-48a987ad8d38/
I didn’t want to give up. My thinking was that if Matt Reeves had an old cinema in the new film what movie posters would he choose to be displayed in the background? You would think he would have to choose from old Warner Brothers films and based on him being inspired by Dial M then surely he might have selected this.
I also remembered an old TAS episode where Two-Face hideout was in an abandoned theatre. I went back and started watching old episodes. I found one TAS episode where Batman saying the epic line “I am vengeance” while tripping on Scarecrows poison. I kept going and discovered the episode I remembered was actually from The New Adventures of Batman. The episode was “Sins of the Father” which featured a young Nick Drake working with Batman and features Two-Face hiding out in an abandoned theatre. There was a shoot out in this episode but somehow the Tim Drake storyline didn’t fit the timeline of the new Batman film.
Sins of the Father Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASvPJVAZkRM
Spiralling and spiralling I continue to find many different Batman content featuring abandoned theatres before realizing that maybe I’m clutching at straws. I still haven’t given up but there is only so much digging I can do trying to find connections between all my findings.
I wanted to share my process with you all and see if anyone else with better Batman knowledge can confirm the use of abandoned theatres being used in Batman storylines. Or if anyone can suggest another movie being filmed in October of last year. It could have been a WW2 film I guess. It also could be Matrix 4 as I can’t really rule that out.
Clues so far:
Old Russian Theatre – Abandoned but could have been made to look like it was still in use.
Dial M For Murder – Oldish looking poster for the classic Hitchcock film
Bullets – Lots of bullet casings leftover from a shoot out scene
Barber Chair – There was one of those old-looking barbers chairs located in one of the areas. Not sure if this was used in the filming. It was out of place for an old theatre but don’t know if it was apart of the filming.