PANIC filled the streets of Glasgow yesterday as hundreds of people fled office buildings and traffic jammed the streets around the city centre.
The dramatic scenes took place on Cochrane Street as the second day of filming on £80 million Hollywood production World War Z, starring Brad Pitt, got under way.
Sirens wailed and screams were heard as police officers in American uniforms ran along the road to warn the public of an impending zombie attack.
Glasgow is doubling for Philadelphia in the pivotal scenes of the post-apocalyptic zombie flick.
And in the coming days, a spectacular car chase and two crashes are planned as well as a helicopter sequence that will capture the chaos unfolding on the streets.
Thousands of fans have converged on George Square in recent days desperate to get a glimpse of Pitt. Office workers have designated their lunch hour Brad-spotting time while others have travelled from further afield in the hope of meeting their hero.
Among the masses were Lanka Somosova, 24 and her sister Zuzanna, 17, who, visiting from Prague, came straight to George Square from the airport after reading about the movie on their morning flight from Dublin.
“We changed our plans as soon as we heard,” said Lanka. “It’s amazing. We hope we get lucky and see him.”
News of the filming has also been making headlines across the globe including in the Vancouver Sun, Houston Chronicle and Los Angeles Times.
Philadelphia itself, one imagines, is still a little sore at not landing the production. The Philadelphia Enquirer recently wrote: “Imagine moviegoers seeing what looks like City Hall, except it’s really Glasgow City Chambers at George Square, which – ouch! – was named for King George III, the very despot Philadelphia led the Revolution against.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article