carpenter and his crew persuaded the city to shut off the electricity to ten blocks at a time at night the film was shot from august to november  it was a tough and demanding shoot for the filmmaker as he recalls "wed finish shooting at about  am and id just be going to sleep at  when the sun would be coming up id wake up around  or  pm depending on whether or not we had dailies and by the time i got going the sun would be setting so for about two and a half months i never saw daylight which was really strange" the gladiatorial fight to the death scene between snake and slag played by professional wrestler ox baker was filmed in the grand hall at st louis union station russell has stated "that day was a nightmare all i did was swing a [spiked] bat at that guy and get swung at in return he threw a trash can in my face about five times  i could have wound up in pretty bad shape" in addition to shooting on location in st louis carpenter shot parts of the film in los angeles various interior scenes were shot on a sound stage the final scenes were shot at the sepulveda dam in sherman oaks new york served as a location as did atlanta to use their futuristic-looking rapid-transit system in new york city carpenter persuaded federal officials to grant access to liberty island "