The Sticky: Everything We Know About The Prime Video Comedy Series

In 2012, the Canadian government-sanctioned Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers discovered that its precious barrels of sweet sap had been (gasp) stolen. Gone was the sugary liquid that filled the FPAQ warehouses. In its stead was mere water, unfit to pour over a hot stack of pancakes or glaze a juicy pork chop. It sounds silly, but the event cost FPAQ $18.7 million CAD and ranks among the most costly thefts in Canadian history. Judging by the fact that syrup production accounts for about $1.1 billion CAD to Canada's GDP, the country's government took the crime very seriously. Now, the story is getting the Hollywood adaptation treatment in a half-hour comedy series coming to Prime Video.

Canada produces 90% of the world's maple syrup, and about 72% of that supply comes from the province of Quebec. That means at least 70% of the entire world's syrup was stolen and illegally distributed sometime between 2011 and July 2012. This robbery came to be called the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist and it was a deep conspiracy against what many consider to be a bona fide cartel, making ringleader Richard Vallieres and his associates seem like Robin Hood-like figures and their eventual fining and imprisonment feel a bit tragic. FPAQ has such a vice-grip on the Canadian maple syrup industry that producers have turned to the black market in order to eke out a profit on their own. The morally fascinating nature of the heist has already earned it an episode on Netflix's docu-series "Dirty Money," but now a fictionalized account will tell the tale of the elaborate crime.

"The Sticky," a co-production between Amazon Studios and Blumhouse, is created and executive produced by Brian Donovan and Ed Herro ("American Housewife"). Directors include Michael Dowse ("Goon"), Joyce Wong ("Wexford Plaza"), and Jonathan Levine ("Nine Perfect Strangers"), with Levine also listed as an executive producer. The cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, yet another executive producer on the series, alongside prolific character actor Margot Martindale, Quebecois actor Guillaume Cyr, and Chris Diamantopoulos from "Silicon Valley" (both Martindale and Diamantopoulos also appear in Peacock's "Mrs. Davis"). The show is currently being shot on location in Quebec for a planned debut sometime in 2024.

An official publicity statement describes the series' premise as such:

"'The Sticky' revolves around Ruth Landry (Martindale), a tough, supremely competent middle-aged Canadian maple syrup farmer who's had it with being hemmed in by the polite, bureaucratic conventions native to her country's identity. Especially now that that very bureaucracy is threatening to take away everything she loves: Her farm, her comatose husband, and her right to manifest destiny. With the help of Remy Bouchard (Cyr), a pint-sized local blockhead and an aging Mike Byrne (Diamantopoulos), a low-level mobster, Ruth changes her fate — and transforms the future of her community with the theft of millions of dollars' worth of maple syrup."

Judging by the names of the characters, it seems as if the show is changing details about the story, such as the identity of Richard Vallieres. In an interview with /Film's Jacob Hall, Chris Diamantopoulos excitedly called the show "genre-bending," musing that it "might reinvent the half-hour genre as not only being connected to comedy." According to the actor, it's like if "you were to take 'Fargo' and dissect it and make it a half-hour show," and added that "it's bent, it's broken, it's frightening, it's thrilling [... ] Oh, it's just great."