Unlikely story: 40 years ago, Dino De Laurentiis started Wilmington's film industry

Forty years ago, one of the most famous film producers in the world opened a studio in Wilmington.

Today, Wilmington and its film industry are still reaping the benefits of that thoroughly unlikely decision.

Dino De Laurentiis (1919-2010) was a prolific Italian film producer who churned out hundreds of movies over the course of a career that spanned 65 years, everything from high art (Federico Fellini's 1957 Oscar winner "Nights of Cabiria") to absolute dreck (the notoriously schlocky, Wilmington-shot "King Kong Lives").

"He's responsible for all this being here," Johnny Griffin, director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission, told the StarNews in 2010, the year De Laurentiis died.

It's a story that's been told often, but bears repeating. De Laurentiis came to Wilmington almost by chance. In 1982, with Martha Schumacher, who would later become his wife, and with Frank Capra Jr., son of the great film director, De Laurentiis was producing "Firestarter," a film version of the Stephen King novel about a young girl who can start fires with her mind.

The script called for a Southern-style, antebellum plantation house as a prominent location, and when flipping through a magazine Capra happened upon a picture of Orton Plantation in Brunswick County.

More: From rice to film, this Brunswick plantation has seen a lot in 300 years

Long story short, in 1983 "Firestarter" became the first major motion picture shot in the Wilmington area. By the time "Firestarter" was released on May 11, 1984, De Laurentiis was building what would become the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, or DEG, studios in Wilmington. Another movie based on King's work, "Cat's Eye," shot in Wilmington that same year.

"(De Laurentiis) fell in love with Wilmington," Bill Vassar, who ran EUE/Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington for 25 years until his retirement last year, told the StarNews in 2009. "He was going to set up a place to make these films and it could've been anywhere in the world. But because of how much he felt at home … he chose to come here."

DEG burned fast and bright, producing more than a dozen movies in Wilmington between 1984 and 1988 while renting out studio space to other productions for additional films. True to form, DEG's output in those years included everything from critically acclaimed Oscar nominees like "Crimes of the Heart" and "Blue Velvet" to questionable fare like "Dracula's Widow," which starred Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel of the erotic "Emmanuelle" films.

The productions formed the basis for what would grow into Wilmington's, and North Carolina's, film industry.

"What Dino did, is that by bringing in the best crafts-makers, the best skilled workers, crew from around the world … he taught the locals who would've never have had the opportunity to learn the film business," Vassar told the StarNews in 2009.

By 1988, however, DEG was bankrupt. Carolco bought DEG in 1989, and in 1996 EUE/Screen Gems acquired the Wilmington studios, sending Frank Capra Jr. back to Wilmington to run it. In 2023, the studios were acquired by Cinespace Studios.

"We were always proud of what it became," Martha De Laurentiis, who died in 2021, told the StarNews in 2019. "The fact it continues to be (a production company and filming) in the area … it's absolutely wonderful."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: How Dino De Laurentiis started a film industry in Wilmington, NC