Ten days after the trailer was dropped at FanFest Chicago, Code 8 has officially launched on Indiegogo. The short film was shot over the summer to give fans a sample of what the full length movie would be. It stars Robbie Amell (The Duff, “X-Files”), Sung Kang (Fast and Furious), and is executive produced by Stephen Amell (“Arrow,” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows). We had the chance to have an exclusive chat with Robbie Amell about the film, working with his cousin Stephen, and attempting to create a cool new sci-fi world.

The story follows a young man with special powers (Amell) struggling to find work as a day laborer. After a dispute over payment, he finds himself in a confrontation with a police officer (Kang) and the autonomous robots backing him up. Code 8 takes place in a world where 4% of the population are born with some type of supernatural ability. Instead of being wealthy superheroes, most ‘specials’ live in poverty and resort to crime, forcing the police to become more militarized.

Director Jeff Chan, who co-wrote the film with producer Chris Paré, had previously helmed live-action shorts for Activision ’s “Call of Duty” franchise. The Indiegogo campaign is full of exclusive perks, the most notable being “Go Fast and Furious” where you get to race Robbie and Sung in gocarts or “Big Time Birthday Party” where fans can celebrate Robbie and Stephen’s birthday. The Indiegogo campaign will run for 31 days and can be found at this link.

ComingSoon.net: Watching footage from the short definitely sparks a lot of curiosity. What sparked the idea for the film initially?
Robbie Amell: Well, Stephen and myself wanted to work together for a long time and we got to do a tiny bit of it on air with “The Flash.” My friend Jeff Chan directed, we’ve been trying to work together for almost six years now. And then the three of us were just talking one night and we decided, “Well, why not do it ourselves?” None of this can be published until Tuesday, but we just decided to shoot a short film. We prepped the whole thing, and then, of course, at the 11th hour, Stephen booked “Ninja Turtles,” and we were unable to have him for the short film, but we have such a great cast already in Sung Kang and Aaron Abrams and we had our crew. We had everything locked down. We decided to proceed without him. We just tweaked the story a little bit, knowing that if we didn’t shoot it now, we weren’t going to have him during “Arrow” anyway. So we shot the short film. Stephen stayed on creatively and he will be a part of the feature, but we shot a 10-minute short. We had three days of filming in Pasadena. And then, we posted in Toronto.

So what we wanted to do was just to prove to people that we could make something really awesome that they would be proud to be a part of. And Stephen and I had met so many incredible fans and we just figured we’d take a shot at making something with them. So we launched an Indiegogo campaign on Tuesday to try and raise just enough money to get the film off the ground, and we’re going to take that and partner with some financiers and production companies and people we’ve already been talking to. We’re not trying to fund the entire movie through fans, but just enough to get it off the ground.

And we have this amazing network of people in Toronto, Playfight Visual Effects, this amazing visual effects house that did all the VFX on the short and will work on the feature. We can pull all the tax breaks through Canada because Steve and myself and Jeff, we’re all Canadian. We just figured this was our best shot at making something really cool that people would be pumped to be a part of.

Check out the rest of the interview at ComingSoon.net!