Netflix is being sued for $105million (£78million) by a production company which claims that the streamer lost a hard drive containing a Nicolas Cage movie.
A lawsuit was filed on Thursday (July 30) in California federal court by writer-producer Simon Afram and his company, Op-Fortitude. They accuse Netflix of compromising the sale of World War II thriller Fortitude, starring Cage, after a copy of the movie contained on a hard drive was lost.
The Hollywood Reporter states that an encrypted copy of the film was on one of several hard drives stolen from Netflix offices last month, although a source told the outlet that the other drives were blank. In a statement to THR, the streaming giant denied all claims made against them.
“Netflix disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards,” a company spokesperson said. “While we do not own the rights to Fortitude, we take content security seriously and have taken extra measures to support the filmmaker and his team. This includes conducting a thorough investigation and offering to monitor known piracy sites for any unauthorized distribution or sale.”
According to the lawsuit, Netflix expressed interest in buying Fortitude in late 2025, and requested screening material in June of this year. It then states that an encrypted copy was then delivered for a screening on June 15, before it is stated that a Netflix executive got in touch to inform the producers that the drive was stolen.
Sean Berney, Netflix’s head of film acquisitions, wrote in an email on June 25 that was quoted by the lawsuit. “Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week,” it read. “We’ve been working through this with our security teams to no luck. Our piracy teams are on high alert with the breach and will monitor.”
Fortitude was directed by Simon West (Con Air, The Expendables 2) and is based on the true story of British intelligence officers who changed the course of World War II by incorporating unique strategic operations to trick Nazi officials.
Elsewhere, Nicolas Cage was recently announced as being included as a playable character in Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone, as part of their upcoming summer of action season.
