Tower Bridge - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Tower Bridge is featured – still under construction, using CGI – in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes. One of the final scenes is played out on the bridge in the movie's climax. The bridge is also the centre of a large action sequence in the film The Mummy Returns. Despite the bridge having been opened in 1894, it also appears in the 2010 film The Wolfman (which was set in 1891). Also, the bridge under construction appears in many episodes of anime Black Butler and it is featured as a place for final battle between angel Ash and a demon Sebastian.

The bridge is also featured as the home of Air Commodore Colonel William Raymond, played by Peter Cushing, in the film Biggles Adventures in Time (1986).

In the 1975 film Brannigan, John Wayne drives a yellow mk2 Ford Capri over the partially opened bridge during a car chase scene. The Spice Girls perform a similar stunt, with a bus, in the 1997 film Spiceworld. The video game, Midtown Madness 2 allows the player to perform the stunt themselves. In the 2004 film Thunderbirds, when The Hood flies the captured Thunderbird 2 to London, he navigates the craft between the bridge's towers, the bridge operators having lifted the bascules just in time.

In the climax of premiere episode of Ashes to Ashes, DCI Gene Hunt takes his team of well-armed detectives by speedboat under Tower Bridge to the rescue.

Tower Bridge was prominently featured twice in the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. In the pre-recorded "Happy and Glorious", the Queen's helicopter flew through Tower Bridge en route from Buckingham Palace to the Olympic Stadium. Later, the Olympic torch was taken by David Beckham via speedboat under the bridge, coinciding with a display of fireworks exploding from the bridge.

The Bridge features in the London segment of Cars 2 as "Tyre Bridge".