In the early 1980s, Myrtle Beach nearly became the unlikely epicenter of East Coast filmmaking. The visionary behind this celluloid ambition was Earl Owensby, a prolific producer of low-budget action and horror films who had already built a reputation—and a studio empire—in Shelby, North Carolina. His plan? To construct a sprawling $200 million film studio and theme park complex called Studio City just south of Myrtle Beach, near Surfside Beach.
Owensby’s vision was bold: sound stages, a private airstrip, studio housing, and a production pipeline that could rival Hollywood. Promotional materials promised a cinematic boom, with Owensby claiming the facility could produce 10% of the nation’s motion pictures. Groundbreaking was scheduled for May 1, 1983, and billboards began appearing around town. Myrtle Beach, long known for its boardwalks and beach balls, was poised to become a hub for B-movie magic.
But the dream never materialized.
Despite initial site clearing and Owensby’s claims of nearly 30 financial backers, Studio City stalled. No sound stages rose, no films rolled. The local tourism board, wary of the gritty genre fare Owensby specialized in, offered little support. By the mid-1980s, the project had quietly faded, leaving behind only rumors and a few promotional relics.
Yet the spirit of Owensby’s vision—scrappy, eccentric, and defiantly regional—has found new life in the hands of Speinsted and Ederpt Productions, the creators behind Retro Myrtle Beach Guy and its cult film Retro Myrtle Beach Guy: The Movie. Their work doesn’t just nod to the B-movie tradition—it mythologizes it, turning Myrtle Beach into a surreal playground of nostalgia, satire, and cinematic absurdity.
Their upcoming film, Mint Jelly, promises to push the envelope even further. Described as “a sci-fi mob noir" Mint Jelly isn't going to just blend genres it plans to reinvent them.
With Mint Jelly slated for an october 25 release and whispers of a Retro Myrtle Beach cinematic universe in the works, the city’s long-lost film ambitions may yet be reborn—not as a failed Hollywood clone, but as a proudly bizarre beacon of B-movie brilliance.
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