ABC's Desperation

Desperation, ABC's upcoming three-hour movie based on Stephen King's horror novel, began production in Bisbee, Ariz., on Halloween, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A Herculean effort by Desperation's executive producer Mark Sennet and director Mick Garris kept the $12 million film in the United States, with the help of Arizona Sen. John McCain and Gov. Janet Napolitano, as well as local businesses and Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the trade paper reported.

Cliff Robertson, Tom Skerritt, Annabeth Gish, Ron Perlman and Steven Weber lead the cast of Desperation, which chronicles the ordeals of a group of travelers thrown together in the nearly deserted spooky Nevada mining town of Desperation, complete with an enormous haunted mine pit and an abandoned movie theater, the trade paper reported.

Garris told the trade paper that the film will faithfully adapt the book. "I see it as a desert noir—or blanc, because it's bright and sun-drenched in the desert—as Norman Rockwell goes to hell," Garris said