Netflix show ‘Outer Banks’ films on Hunting Island for hit series’ upcoming 4th season

Cast and crew of the hit Netflix show “Outer Banks” returned to Hunting Island State Park this week to film for the series’ upcoming fourth season. The two-day shoot took place near the park’s iconic lighthouse, a recurring setting for the action-packed teen drama.

Scenes filmed in the area on Monday and Tuesday included most of the main cast, including actors Rudy Pankow and Madison Bailey. Production temporarily shut down the park’s north-beach parking lot and spaces around the Hunting Island Lighthouse, which has been closed to the public since early 2022.

This won’t be the first time the prized state park in northern Beaufort County has served as the show’s natural backdrop, said Matt Storm, film commissioner for the state of South Carolina. The pilot episode features a drunken brawl between characters at “The Boneyard,” filmed at the park’s similarly-nicknamed maritime forest. The Hunting Island Lighthouse is seen several times throughout the first season, used interchangeably with the interior of Folly Beach’s Morris Island Lighthouse to depict the series’ fictional Redfield Lighthouse.

Storm said production crews tried to film a few “driving scenes” on Hunting Island beaches in June 2023, but the location “didn’t work out,” prompting a reshoot in North Carolina. The SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike began the next month and suspended filming operations in Charleston, where most of the series is filmed.

Despite its titular setting, very little of “Outer Banks” is filmed at the major tourist destination, a 200-mile string of barrier islands off the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia. Production was originally intended for Wilmington, N.C., but was moved to the Palmetto State due to North Carolina’s controversial anti-transgender bathroom bill that was enacted in 2016.

“Outer Banks” follows a group of teenagers living on Pleasure Island, a coastal town with wide social rifts between wealthy seasonal residents and working-class locals — known in the show’s universe as “Kooks” and “Pogues,” respectively. A search for one character’s missing father plunges the group into a high-stakes treasure hunt.

Like in the first season, the upcoming episodes of “Outer Banks” will likely feature a few Beaufort County residents as extras. A casting call for the Hunting Island shoot asked for six background actors aged 18 to 25 to play “beach Pogues.”

Showrunners paid a “small fee” to Hunting Island for use of the filming location, according to Storm. Park rangers were also paid to be temporarily folded into the crew as “site representatives,” using their knowledge of the location to make sure filming ran smoothly.

Production for the fourth season of “Outer Banks” is scheduled to wrap up in early August, according to IMDb. Netflix says the new episodes will release by the end of 2024.