ROULEAU, Sask. - It's July on the set of the new "Corner Gas" movie, and actress Nancy Robertson is sitting in a booth at Ruby's Cafe trying not to spill the beans about the plot of the film based on the beloved CTV series.

"You'd have to bribe me with cupcakes. I like margaritas. You could bribe me with a mitt-full of margaritas. You'd get anything out of me then," she laughed.

Suddenly, a train went past the set. Its whistle blew and Robertson took it as a sign.

"See, the train is the thing that's telling me: 'Shut up. Don't say any spoilers. Belt up Nancy. Don't tell any spoilers.' I can't," said Robertson.

"I think there'd be a few people that would put the hammer down on me if I spoiled anything and that's really hard for me. Oh yeah, I'm really bad at keeping secrets."

"Corner Gas" creator Brent Butt seemed more willing to talk about the movie's storyline — sort of.

"The plot is it turns out Earth is run by apes — or am I thinking of something else? I get my movies mixed up sometimes. I go back to the future? I can't remember," he joked.

"We shoot it out of order so I can't remember what the plot is. I think I pump gas for somebody at one point. I believe I eat a chili cheese dog about 11 times. No, you know in the whole feature film, there's only one consumption of chili cheese dog — that doesn't seem right to me."

The movie picks up five years after the TV series ended in 2009. The official line is that the fine folks of Dog River are facing a crisis. They discover that the town's been badly mismanaged.

Butt doesn't want to give too much away.

"The characters, the people who reside in Dog River, kind of have to make that decision whether they're going to roll up the sidewalks and shut her down and move their separate ways or rally to see if they can fight and save the town," he explained.

Butt, who was born and raised in Tisdale, Sask., says he always thought a movie was a good idea after the series ended in 2009.

He says converting a 22 minute show to a 90-minute film was tricky. The script took about 2 1/2 years to come together, he said.

"But the end result, I think, is really good and everybody who's read the script says this is really funny. This really works well, so I think we nailed it."

Butt says there will be some references to the series, but he also thinks that the movie will still make sense to people who haven't seen the show.

"If you're a fan, if you watched a lot of the series, it's going to be a fun movie to watch. There's going to be a lot of little touchstones for you. But if you didn't watch the series, you can watch this movie. It'll all make sense and the things that you're missing, you just won't realize that you're missing anything," said Butt.

"Corner Gas: The Movie" opens December 3 to 7 at select Cineplex Theatres and will later air on CTV.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2014