A white house with gingerbread trim and corn fields “as far as the eye can see.” That’s what the director Jocelyn Moorhouse was looking for as the setting of her movie 1,000 Acres. Sounds a lot like Iowa, right? Think again.

Illinois was chosen as the location for the filming of Propaganda Film’s story about an Iowa farm family. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Iowa State University professor Jane Smiley, 1,000 Acres began filming Monday on a farm near Rochelle, Ill. Filming is sheduled to last about five weeks.

Several midwest states were in the running as the filming location — Indiana, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and, of course, Illinois and Iowa. Iowa had long been rumored as the favorite. But last month, producers made their final decision.

“It basically came down to a transportation issue,” Wendol Jarvis, manager of the Iowa Film Office said. He said the larger airport would allow more freedom for stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange to travel.

Jarvis said the Iowa Film Office did much to inform the producers about Iowa and its possible locations. “We scouted farms and houses all over the state,” he said. “We also sent them stats on crops and growing conditions. They had all the information they needed.”

But he added that the decision to film in Illinois was probably made by Pfeiffer and Lange. “Jessica and Michelle have a lot of money invested and their production companies are involved,” he said.

Jarvis said that the Film Office has other “projects in the works,” though, so the fact that 1,000 Acres won’t be filmed in Iowa “won’t have much of an effect” on the office.

The movie version of Smiley’s novel, loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Lear, stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jason Robards and Jennifer Jason Leigh.