Dashboards and Saddlebags the Destination Magazine™ Issue 016 July 2012 | Page 20

Film Junkies Guide to North Carolina
Cleveland County
Locations
Earl Owensby Studios

1 Motion Picture Boulevard Shelby
(704-487-0500, www.earlowenshy.com).
The studios are not open to the public.

S

ome argue that Earl Owensby
and his self-described “billyflicks” of the ‘70s and ‘80s founded
filmmaking in North Carolina.
True or not, this maverick is a
legend in the state’s movie annals.
He did things his way. Owensby
was old-fashioned in his efficient,
almost family-like approach, yet
he was also innovative in realizing
the profitability of American action
movies in the overseas market. Not
familiar with Challenge? Never
heard of Chain Gang? Didn’t catch
Rottweiler? You’re probably in the
majority. But these hard-hitting
titles were among the dozen or
so features Owensby produced,
directed, and often starred in from
the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s. In a
bottom-line business, every one of
them made money, often reaping
a tenfold return on investment.
And you probably have heard of
James Cameron, whose taut 1989
underwater thriller The Abyss
shot at Owensby’s South Carolina
studio, converted from an unfinished nuclear power plant with a
7.5-million-gallon tank.
Earl Owensby Studios, outside
Shelby, is a state-of-the-art 67-acre
complex with eight sound stages,
editing suites, screening rooms,
and a 100,000-gallon film tank

featuring underwater camera bays.
Owensby’s story has been told in
GQ, on “60 Minutes” (twice!), on
“Late Night with David Letterman,”
and in the Los Angeles Times
and the New York Times, among
other places. A native of nearby
Cliffside, North Carolina, Earl got
fixated on films as a kid ushering
at the Cliffside Theater. In fact,
his admiration for John Wayne in
Sands of Iwo Jima inspired him to
join the Marines. After five years
in the Corps, he returned to North
Carolina and founded a number of
successful companies, primarily
in the industrial supply business.
In 1973, he produced and starred
in his first feature film, Challenge
He poured the profits into the
construction of his film studios,
which grew into the largest independent facility outside Hollywood.
Over three dozen feature films and
television and cable productions

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