Throwback Thursday: Stephen King, Maximum Overdrive, and Wilmington’s film boom

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — This week’s Throwback Thursday revisits a pivotal moment in Wilmington’s film history, when Hollywood crews arrived in the Cape Fear to begin work on what would become one of the area’s most recognizable movies.

The segment looks back at 1985, when pre-production was underway for Maximum Overdrive, the only feature film directed by horror author Stephen King.

WWAY reported that crews were preparing for filming while Dino De Laurentiis Studios was also busy transforming a giant mechanical King Kong for a future production.

“Probably gonna have to strip the hair off of it, build a new skin to it and, you know, give him a new facelift, basically,” one crew member said.

A few months later, WWAY returned as construction got underway on the Dixie Boy Truck Stop in Leland, the iconic set where much of Maximum Overdrive was filmed.

The archives also showed another familiar movie set still standing on the studio backlot after production wrapped on Year of the Dragon.

“If you’re wondering whatever happened to the Chinatown set used in the movie Year of the Dragon… it’s still here on the back lot,” a reporter said in the 1985 story. “You just remove some of the signs, and you’ll have almost any downtown street in the country.”

At the same time, studio officials announced that David Lynch’s Blue Velvet was also preparing to film in Wilmington, further establishing the city as a growing center for movie production.

Today, Maximum Overdrive remains one of Wilmington’s most recognizable film productions. The movie returns to the big screen this weekend at Jengo’s Playhouse, with additional screenings scheduled at Thalian Hall next month.

The segment is part of a weekly Throwback Thursday series that features stories from WWAY’s historical news archives. That archive can be accessed here.