Tradecraft: H Collective Activates COUNTER SPY Comedy

The H Collective, a global film finance and production company founded last year, has been building an aggressive production slate recently. As we learned last month, the focal point in their production slate is a fourth xXx film with Vin Diesel following The H Collective's acquisition of the rights to the extreme spy franchise from Revolution Studios. That fits in with their eye to the Chinese market, where the xXx: Return of Xander Cage made the bulk of its overseas money. Continuing the China-focused strategy - and, more importantly, continuing with the spy genre - The H Collective last week set the CIA comedy Counter Spy to be the first film of a three-picture co-production and distribution deal with Chinese streaming giant IQiyi. According to Deadline, "Counter Spy follows a barista at the CIA headquarters’ Starbucks in Langley, Virginia. He has the highest security coffee job in the world and loves being close to the action. However, when he’s accidentally tangled up in a secret mission with an old-school CIA agent and his Chinese counterparts, his fantasy of the spy life comes crashing down." David Rothenberg and Lionel Enns penned the first draft of the script; former Marvel exec Craig Kyle is currently doing a rewrite. The H Collective recently struck a distribution deal with Sony, so it seems possible that studio could handle domestic.