Robbie Amell discusses the ‘unbelievable journey’ of Code 8 feature film

Robbie Amell tells Hidden Remote about taking Code 8 from short film to full-length movie,with help from fans, and working with his cousin Stephen Amell.

Code 8 has taken Robbie Amell on an adventure. In 2016, it was released as a short film and won over sci-fi fans, who joined an Indiegogo campaign to turn it into a feature-length movie. It made more than $2 million, and now the full-length Code 8 is streaming and available in select movie theaters.

Hidden Remote spoke to Robbie about what it meant to have the support of the fans, getting to work with his cousin Stephen Amell, and how the cast and creative team expanded the world of Code 8 when it became a feature.

Learn about the making of Code 8 in our interview below, then stream the movie on iTunes, Apple TV or Amazon Video, and look out for it in select movie theaters near you.

Hidden Remote: You’ve spent years working on this movie. What does it mean to you that Code 8 has gone from short to full film?

Robbie Amell: It’s been an unbelievable journey. Jeff [Chan], who directed it and was really the driving force behind the movie, was like it feels like we went to Vegas and we pushed all our chips in and it worked—and then we pushed all of them in again and it worked, and then we pushed them all in again.

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It’s been such an unbelievable ride that luckily, we’ve been able to take with so many friends and family, which is really the reason the movie worked.

HR: The fans literally contributed to the success of Code 8, raising millions of dollars to get it made. What made you decide to go the crowdfunding route and bring them into the process?

RA: When we made the short film, it was always the plan to try and make a little bit of money on Indiegogo. And more than anything, it was just going to prove to anyone that we were going to try and make the [full] movie with that there was an interest for it.

The Indiegogo [campaign] was the perfect storm for us. The Facebook algorithm was at its peak for sharing, and the short film [made the] front page of Reddit, and people really dug it. It turned out to be way bigger than we ever imagined. It gave us the freedom to make the movie that we wanted to make. Without the 30,000 backers, this movie would have been so much smaller, if anything at all.

HR: What did you have to go through in order to transform it from a short into a feature?

RA: The short film was never supposed to be a piece of the movie. It was world-building and a proof of concept—here, this is what ten minutes could look like. We wanted to make sure if we were going to ask people to support it, that they felt good about what the product was going to be, especially because we knew it would take a long time. Making movies is a long process.

Once we made the short, we knew what the world was. Jeff and Chris [Pare] got going on the feature and spoke with me and Stephen about characters and they wrote for our voices. Making a short is difficult, because you only have 10 minutes to cram a lot into it, where in the feature we got to really let people get to know these characters and take them on a bit of a ride.

HR: Did your character Connor Reed change at all between the short film and the feature film?

RA: In the short film, I have a younger brother and we were originally going to go with that for the feature, but there were a couple reasons [why] we didn’t. One was working with a minor, you only have a certain amount of hours per day, and we were already as strapped for time as we could be.

The other one was we wanted to be as relatable as possible, and everyone can think about what they would do for their mom. We just wanted to break it down to the plot being as simple as possible. How far someone would go for a loved one—in Connor’s case, his mother.

HR: You also brought in some great actors who weren’t in the Code 8 short. Talk about some of the new additions to the cast.

RA: Kari Matchett, who plays my mom, she was so good. She was the first audition I watched during the casting process and I was like, she’s the one. She reminds me of my real mom. Greg Bryk was unbelievable and so great in the movie.

Peter Outerbridge, who’s in the movie, was actually our second choice for Sutcliffe, Greg Bryk’s character. They were the two last guys to audition and they [gave] two completely different reads. We went with Greg Bryk, but we asked Peter Outerbridge if he would come back and play a smaller role in the hope that we did a sequel or continued the project, and he was gracious enough to do that for us. So we had great actors playing small roles, which is very rare.

We got very lucky. Kyla Kane, who plays Nia, completely changed our minds. We had a completely different character originally for Nia, and Kyla read and Jeff spotted it. He said the innocence she has is so perfect for this role, because she needs to be the one person who hasn’t been corrupted by this world.

HR: Many fans are excited to see you and Stephen working together. What was it like to team up with him on Code 8?

RA: It was really great. Our first scene is in the diner, and we had never worked together before, so [that] kind of worked. We’re both feeling each other out. But as their relationship in the movie progresses, they start to get more comfortable with each other, and that’s where we got to bring in our own relationship and bring a little bit of ourselves into the roles. And that’s always nice when you have a built-in chemistry of family.

HR: What memories will you take away from the Code 8 experience?

RA: The entire thing for me was so special. We got to shoot with all our friends and family in Toronto, where our families live; they would visit set. it was five weeks of just having a great time, but also everyone was so passionate about making something that they could take ownership of and be proud of. I loved it from start to finish.

There was one day that was really special. 300 people paid to be extras in the movie, which gave us the ability to shoot a bigger scene than we would normally be able to, because you have to pay extras normally. People flew in from around the world, and it was so great to be able to share that experience. We went out and took them for a beer that night after shooting. It was just unbelievable to see people from all around the world fly into Toronto to be part of our little movie.

HR: Is there anything you want to say to fans as they watch Code 8 now?

RA: You don’t need to watch the short to watch the feature. It can be a little confusing, because some characters are different, but [the short] was just to build the world.

We had a couple offers from studios and we had different ways we could have made it, but we wanted to stay true to ourselves and really take responsibility for what we made, and I’m super proud of what we made.

When it came to distribution we wanted to make it as accessible as possible to people, so seeing it in the theater is a great experience, it’s bigger and louder. But with the convenience of streaming services….renting this or buying this on demand is a great way to watch it ,too. We just want as many eyeballs on it as possible.

Code 8 is available to stream now on iTunes, Apple TV and Amazon Video.