EXCLUSIVE: Bam Kapow Finds Abandoned 'Wolverine' Movie Set

Occasionally you hear about something cool and you can plan what you’re gonna do down to the most minute detail. Sometimes you just stumble across things and it just comes down to luck. Pure. Dumb. Luck.

Chalk this one up under the second option. Back in January some friends and I decided to do something a bit different on a Saturday afternoon. We caught a ferry from Circular Quay around to Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. None of us knew a lot about the place, but amongst other things, we found out it has been used as a former imperial prison, industrial school and reformatory. Towards the back of the island are where some of the biggest shipyards in Australia were built. All of these areas are now open for the public to walk through.

We walked to the back of one of the shipping sheds and there was what appeared to be a concrete wall with a gate attached to it. It looked slightly out of place but blended in with the surrounding steel work and we didn’t think anymore of it.

Until I leant against it and realised it was made of wood. We looked around and soon discovered that not only was the concrete wall fake, but the steel girders and metal gate were all constructed from similar materials.

As we wandered around trying to find out what film set we had discovered, the friendly park ranger arrived on his pushbike, asked just what the hell did we think we were doing, and could we please step over to the correct side of the barrier…

He went on to give us a working demonstration of the double gates and explained how Wolverine came crashing out the top window and released all the mutants from their cages. This was before we had seen any trailers so we nodded politely and tried to imagine how this would all fit together. After Wolverine makes a break for it, he escapes through a tunnel (Apparently, I didn’t watch the workprint so I don’t know)

There actually is a service tunnel that runs through the island from one side to the other which the ranger said they also used for filming.

All of the set pieces are still there as of yesterday, anyone can go and see them. They still have some of the cages there too which you can see in one of the photos over at this FLICKR page.

The big window is directly behind the gates when you turn around. So if you’re in Sydney and want to see where some of Wolverine was made, jump on a ferry and check it out and see what you can find.