By Kevin Martel

Corner Gas: The Movie premieres in Regina

Nov 26, 2014 | 12:28 PM

The crowd was on its feet applauding after Corner Gas: The Movie made its Regina premiere Tuesday night.

The consensus from the audience — which was likely bigger than the entire population of Dog River — was one of enjoyment and approval.

“It was awesome. So funny,” said fan April Lawrence.

“Oh, I loved it. I just really enjoyed it. It was just one laugh after another,” expressed another woman. “I think it did a good job of coming back after a five-year hiatus.”

It was big praise for a show its creator didn’t think would take off the way it has — or even at all.

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“We didn’t think anybody was going to watch so we weren’t worried about appeasing a demographic,” said Brent Butt, who is the star of the show and movie. “We just went about making a show that we truly liked and that we really thought was good because that’s all we could do.”

Butt and fellow cast members Fred Ewanuick, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Lorne Cardinal and Nancy Robertson walked the red carpet under the bright lights for the official premiere, even though the film was screened in Saskatoon a day earlier.

The show ran from 2004 to 2009 and is now shown to countries around the world. Butt admitted it took the writing team roughly two years to pen this story to paper the proper way, adding it was a challenge to turn a 22-minute episode into a 90-minute movie.

“It’s easy to do it if you’re happy with ruining the project, but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to do a good movie,” he said.

And he believes it is a good movie at the very least. So does his co-star Spencer-Nairn.

“You’re not going to be disappointed. The show wasn’t ruined. It’s just as intimate, just as funny and it’s the same characters that you loved,” she said.

Tuesday’s audience seemed to agree, laughing and clapping throughout the film. At the after party, fans of all sorts were gleefully willing to talk about what they had just watched. 

Blair Brewin and his son Ben made the drive from Calgary to show their loyalty.

“It was great. It was funny and it reminded me of the TV show,” said Blair.

Other fans had never seen the show on television, but still enjoyed the movie. Long-time fans also spoke about how much they liked the return of the made-in-Saskatchewan show. 

The film was shot in Rouleau and Regina over the summer.

“It was nice to see some local areas and local places to check out and the people were great too,” said one woman.

Many agree the movie stayed true to the show as it aired on TV. For Butt, that’s the chili and cheese on top of his hot dog.

“I couldn’t be happier, couldn’t be prouder that we were able to deliver our true cinematic feature film experience but bring along everything that you liked about Corner Gas.”

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