Collective Pictures

Code 8 Franchise

Collective Pictures released a 10-minute short film entitled Code 8 on YouTube in March 2016. Centred around the 4% of people living in fictional Lincoln City who possess special abilities, the sci-fi fantasy stressed individual power over technological superiority and military authority.^[4] The short has accumulated over 6.9 million views as of January 2024.^[5]

The short acted as a teaser for the potential feature film. An Indiegogo fundraising campaign, spearheaded by Collective, Robbie Amell, and Stephen Amell, asking for $200,000 was launched on March 23, 2016.^[6] The campaign reached its goal within 36 hours and reached $2.4 million by April 24, 2016. Fundraising closed with $3.4 million on December 31, 2019, with the continued campaign helping recover costs of DVD pressings and the distribution to contributors of perks, wardrobe and props from the production.^[7] A four-minute segment of the film's closing credits shows a list of only some of the 30,810 contributors to the fundraising campaign. The first announcement of additional cast came on June 12, 2017, when Laysla De Oliveira joined the film.^[8]

Code 8 set the record for the highest grossing day-and-date release for Elevation Pictures in Canada and Vertical Entertainment in the U.S., eventually earning $5 million in VOD revenue through Apple, Amazon and Vudu. The film, also financed by Telefilm and U.K. based Fyzz Facility, reached No. 1 on Netflix's Top 10 list in the U.S., France, Australia, UK, Mexico and Brazil.^[4] Following Code 8's success, a sequel was announced in June 2021.^[4]

On June 1, 2021, it was announced Robbie Amell and Stephen Amell would produce the sequel alongside Collective and reprise their roles from the original film.^[9] On June 14, Ted Sarandos announced Netflix had acquired the rights to the feature film and would release it exclusively to their platform.^[10] Filming was scheduled to begin in Toronto in October 2021. Cast members confirmed filming had begun in November 2021, with Amell teasing the possibility of Code 8: Part III.^[11] Code 8: Part II began filming in the fourth quarter of 2021 and was released February 28, 2024 on Netflix.^[12]

Other projects

In September 2020, it was announced that Wattpad and Collective Pictures would team up to develop Float, a film based on the story written by Kate Marchant on the Wattpad social storytelling platform.^[13] The film, directed by Sherren Lee, was released on February 9, 2024.^[14]