Hit Netflix show 'Outer Banks' files permits to shoot scenes in the Wilmington area

At long last, hit Netflix show "Outer Banks" is coming home to Wilmington. At least for a couple of days.

Katie Ryan, recreation program supervisor with the town of Wrightsville Beach, said "Outer Banks" has filed permits with the town to shoot scenes for the show's fourth season on the beach's south end, near the Oceanic restaurant and Masonboro Island, on Nov. 20 and 21.

According to the permits, one scene will involve "2 people jumping from the pier" while another "involves individuals finding a body on the beach."

"Outer Banks" will be the first production to shoot in the Wilmington area since mid-May, when unions representing actors and writers went on strike, shutting down film and TV projects nationwide. The Writers Guild of America settled with film producers and streamers in September, while the Screen Actors Guild struck a deal just this month.

"Outer Banks" had filed permits to shoot in Wrightsville Beach and New Hanover County in June, but pulled back after actors went on strike in July.

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The show's arrival here is fitting, if bittersweet, considering that "Outer Banks" co-creator Jonas Pate, who lives in Wilmington, always wanted to shoot it here.

In 2019, Pate told the StarNews he wrote the show to shoot in North Carolina and specifically in Wilmington. But the show wound up shooting in South Carolina instead after the North Carolina General Assembly passed the controversial House Bill 2, which critics said discriminated against transgender people.

HB-2 was repealed in 2017. But a provision in a replacement law, House Bill 142, that forbade municipalities from passing ordinances excluding them from the bill, proved a sticking point with Netflix, Pate said in 2019, and "Outer Banks" shot in the Charleston area instead.

The soapy, long-running drama is set in North Carolina's Outer Banks, where the dueling tribes of wealthy (and hot) "Kooks" and working-class (and also hot) "Pogues" vie for love and riches. In season three, it all leads to South America and a search for the location of the legendary golden treasure of El Dorado.

Pate, who's from Raeford, made his first movie in Wilmington in 1995 with his twin brother, Joshua, who's also a co-creator of "Outer Banks." "The Grave," about two escaped prison inmates searching for buried treasure — a theme Pate continues to mine in "Outer Banks" — made it into the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Pate lived in Los Angeles for more than two decades before moving back to Wilmington in 2018. He had previously returned to Wilmington in 2005 to shoot the NBC TV series "Surface," of which he was a creator.

Last year, Pate shot the pilot for his latest project, said to be about a high school rock band trying to make it big, in Wilmington.

OBX & ILM: 'Outer Banks' has plenty of Wilmington connections

Even though it hasn't shot here till now, "Outer Banks" has long had a strong connection to Wilmington.

Wilmington's Bo Webb, a co-founder of the Port City's Cucalorus Film Festival, is a camera operator on the show, and "Outer Banks" features many other Wilmington-based crew members as well.

Plus, a half-dozen Wilmington or former Wilmington actors appeared in the third season of "Outer Banks," which hit Netflix in February.

Playing a key role in the final three episodes of "Outer Banks" season three was Wilmington actor Justin Smith. Smith plays a salty dog of a drug runner with the killer name of Barracuda Mike, who could return for more action in season four.

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This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Netflix's Outer Banks to shoot season 4 in Wilmington NC