"Sedona: The Motion Picture" now filming

The film once envisioned a budget of $2 million, a friend of PHXated tells us; now it’s down to a small percentage of that figure, with a lot of even that planned to be barter.

But production has finally begun in Sedona. The producers' aim, our friend says, is to capture the kooky quality of the environment in hopes of creating a “Northern Exposure”-like TV spinoff.

The creators are Tommy Stovall and Marc Sterling; their previous effort was a film called Hate Crime.

The plot of Sedona: The Motion Picture? These things always change, of course, but here’s an early précis:

Imagine the plight of Tammy Johnson, a 50-year old type-A businesswoman who takes a wrong turn en route to Phoenix and winds up in Sedona, where a tour plane barrels down West State Route 89A in an emergency crash landing maneuvering that forces her car off the road. Her car’s a wreck, she’s running terribly late, and she winds up suffering an agonizing wait at the repair shop, where she discovers that she can’t even rent a car to get out of town. As she’s stuck in Sedona, the no-nonsense advertising exec encounters a series of quirky New Age locals, including a “holistic pedicurist whose services include psychic readings.