Netflix Nabs Robbie and Stephen Amell’s ‘Code 8’ Sci-Fi Thriller Sequel
The world rights deal was unveiled as Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos keynoted the Banff World Media Festival, marking the streaming giant’s first original Canadian English-language feature acquisition.
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![Robbie Amell Stephen Amell](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2-split_169_template-copy-15.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1)
Cousins Stephen Amell and Robbie Amell sold the sequel to their sci-fi thriller Code 8 to Netflix.
The streaming giant picked up the global rights to Code 8: Part II in a deal with XYZ Films. The acquisition marks Netflix’s first English-language original feature from Canada after the streaming giant took global rights to Canadian director Ricardo Trogi’s Le Guide de la famille parfaite (The Guide to the Perfect Family), the French-language dramedy about an over-parenting society that got a theatrical release in Quebec and a simultaneous release in the rest of the world on Netflix.
Jeff Chan, who directed the original Code 8 sci-fi, will helm the sequel, with Robbie Amell (Upload) and Stephen Amell (Arrow) reprising their roles.
The sequel is set to shoot in Canada later year before a global release on Netflix.
Code 8: Part II, from Collective Pictures, sees a teenage girl with abnormal abilities, after witnessing the murder of her brother, seek the help of an ex-con (Robbie Amell) and his former partner-in-crime (Stephen Amell).
Together, they face a unit of corrupt police officers who deploy advanced robotic technology to prevent themselves from being exposed.
The Code 8 sequel is written by Chris Paré, Chan, Sherren Lee and Jesse LaVercombe. Chan, Robbie Amell, Stephen Amell and Paré are producing, with XYZ Films executive producing.
The original Code 8 thriller was set in a world where four percent of the population is born with varying supernatural abilities, but rather than be billionaires or superheroes, most “specials” face discrimination, live in poverty and often resort to crime. That leaves Connor Reed, played by The Flash star Robbie Amell, as a powerful young man struggling to pay for his ailing mother’s medical treatment. To earn money, he joins a criminal world led by Garrett, played by Stephen Amell.