TORONTO -- Canadian actor Stephen Amell is a superhero onscreen -- and also on the indie film fundraising front.

The Toronto native, who plays a crime-fighting vigilante in TV's "Arrow" and also stars in the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film, has co-raised a whopping US$1.7 million through crowdfunding for his upcoming feature "Code 8."

He and his cousin/actor Robbie Amell ("The Flash," "The DUFF") got the funds through an Indiegogo campaign, which was promoted with a 10-minute teaser for the sci-fi film, about a small population of people who face severe discrimination because of their supernatural abilities.

It far surpassed their original goal of $200,000 and is "the largest Canadian film campaign in crowdfunding history," says Indiegogo.

"There's a variety of different ways that we could have gone about it," says Amell of fundraising for the film.

"The biggest thing for us is, we wanted to retain 100 per cent of the creative control."

The two are producing "Code 8" and plan to co-star and shoot in Canada in a year, when Amell is on a break from "Arrow."

"Unless we're shooting another 'Turtles,' in which case we'll have to juggle," says Amell.

Yes, Amell would like to continue being a part of the superhero reptile franchise after playing Casey Jones in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," in theatres Friday.

Between his "Arrow" training and his childhood experience playing hockey, he was "ready-made" for the role, in which he fights crime with a goalie mask and hockey stick.

"I'm used to fighting a lot on 'Arrow' and so I came in, I got a chance to rehearse Casey's first fight scene, and we were off and running from there," he says.

"I was a centre-forward (in childhood hockey)," he adds. "My slapshot has always been decent."

Dave Green directed the cast, which also includes Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Laura Linney, and Tyler Perry.

While "Turtles" is certainly a big-budget blockbuster, "Code 8" will be more scaled down. Amell says it will be a $10-million production or thereabouts.

"There are a lot of people in Hollywood that would like to buy it," he says. "But the second that they buy it, they're also going to want to buy the script, which is not what we want.

"We want to create our own thing."

This is Amell's first time getting a producing credit and he loves the idea that they are "bound by nothing in this."

"We're not going to test this movie," he says. "We're not going to have someone come in and be like, 'This is the ending but the audience didn't like it, so let's reshoot something different.'

"We're going to create what we want and then we're going to see if people like it."