Where is RJ Decker filmed? Barely any of its 'South Florida' is Florida — the real town has been faking bigger shows for decades
R.J. Decker is a Fort Lauderdale show built on Carl Hiaasen's Florida. Most of it is shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, a town that has been playing somewhere else since 1983.
ABC's R.J. Decker premiered on March 3, 2026, as a South Florida crime drama: Scott Speedman plays a former photojournalist turned private eye working Fort Lauderdale, in a series inspired by Carl Hiaasen's 1987 novel Double Whammy. The show was shot mostly in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, with Carolina Beach and Fort Fisher filling in for the coast.
North Carolina Film Office director Guy Gaster told the Durham Herald-Sun that more than 85% of season 1 was filmed in the state. Florida gets the rest.
The money explains the map. North Carolina approved up to $2.8 million in state film grants for the pilot and up to $11.6 million for season 1, filmed in New Hanover County. That's up to $14.4 million from one state for a show about another. Florida had nothing to put on the table.
How much of it is actually Florida
The Florida part of R.J. Decker is mostly what you see through a car window. The pilot shot in Wilmington and Fort Lauderdale in summer 2025, and the rest of season 1 filmed in Wilmington from November 2025 through April 2026. The cast travels south for the shots North Carolina can't fake.
"That town kind of doubles as Fort Lauderdale as well."
— Kevin Rankin, on Carolina Beach, to Distractify
Speedman told People the production goes to Fort Lauderdale two or three times a season "to get all our exteriors and immerse ourselves in the life". The crew also took over downtown West Palm Beach on January 24, 2026, around the Palm Beach County Courthouse. When People visited the set that February, Wilmington was digging out from a snowstorm, and the cast was keeping up the Florida sunshine on a sound stage.
Why Florida keeps losing its own stories
Florida's state film incentive ran from 2010 to 2016 on a budget of nearly $300 million, and the first-come, first-served money ran out early. A state report concluded it returned 43 cents for every dollar spent, and the program wasn't renewed. Before the decline, Florida was home to Burn Notice and the original Dexter.
Hiaasen has seen the other version of this. Apple TV+'s Bad Monkey, also adapted from his work, shot almost entirely in South Florida without any state incentive, because producer Bill Lawrence and Hiaasen talked the streamer into it for authenticity. Lawrence still doesn't think that's repeatable.
"It's always going to be super hard to be competitive for Florida."
— Bill Lawrence, Bad Monkey producer, to WUSF
Hiaasen made the same point this summer, telling Flamingo that productions now have plenty of places to go and that "they can try to make look like Florida." His own show is one of them.
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Wilmington's long career as somewhere else
Wilmington became a film town by accident and by design. Dino De Laurentiis produced Firestarter there in 1983, the first film) at what became his studio complex, built in 1984. The lot later passed to Carolco, then to EUE/Screen Gems in 1996, and in September 2023 to Cinespace. Its résumé is mostly other people's addresses:
- 1994, The Crow: Detroit. Production started in Wilmington in February 1993.
- 1998–2003, Dawson's Creek: Capeside, Massachusetts.
- 2013, The Conjuring: A Rhode Island farmhouse, built from Wilmington locations and stages.
- 2013, Iron Man 3: Shot primarily at EUE/Screen Gems in Wilmington.
- 2013–2015, Sleepy Hollow: Sleepy Hollow, New York, until the show moved to Georgia.
- 2019, Swamp Thing: A Louisiana swamp town.
- 2022, Scream: Woodsboro, California, with Williston Middle School as Woodsboro High.
- 2023, Florida Man: Netflix's Florida series, shot in and around Wilmington and Carolina Beach.
Florida Man is the closest precedent, and Florida noticed at the time. R.J. Decker is the bigger version of the same trade: a network drama with Hiaasen's name on it and a second season shot in Wilmington too.
The swap has gone the other way before. Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, set in fictional New Essex, North Carolina, started shooting) in Fort Lauderdale in November 1990. Three and a half decades later, North Carolina pays to play Fort Lauderdale, and Florida doesn't pay at all.
Previously we wrote: Silo's last episode explained: both timelines finally collide