Netflix Theft Leads to $105 Million Lawsuit Over Missing Nicolas Cage Movie Screener

An old-fashioned heist, but not for the Declaration of Independence

Simon Afram, a writer and producer from production company Op-Fortitude, filed a lawsuit against streaming giant Netflix last week. According to Afram, an associate producer brought an unreleased master copy of his upcoming film, a World War II film starring Nicolas Cage called “Fortitude,” to Netflix’s L.A. office in June. However, Netflix never returned the drive, as agreed upon. Instead, they reported that the movie was among a number of missing drives that had been stolen off a desk.

Worried that this might impact the movie’s sales and distribution, Afram decided to sue Netflix for about $105,000,000. Netflix denies that it bears responsibility for the theft, but Afram disagrees.

It’s a complicated issue, so let’s dive into the details.

What is “Fortitude”?

“Fortitude” is an upcoming World War II film directed by Simon West. It boasts a star-studded cast, including Nicholas Cage, Ben Kingsley, Michael Sheen, and Ron Perlman. According to all the marketing, the movie is based on a real-life story about “the single most successful piece of orchestrated espionage in modern day history,” wherein British Intelligence operatives ran a series of scams to deceive the Nazis.

Unfortunately, the only espionage the film ended up seeing was of the corporate kind.

How did this happen?

While “Fortitude” hasn’t yet resurfaced anywhere online, the whole thing makes me think of another scandal from earlier in the year: the Paramount leak that saw “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender” spread across the internet months before its intended release.

That leak happened because a hacker found his way into a media server, likely by acquiring an employee’s login credentials through another hack or phishing scheme. And the hacker bragged about his crimes online, so authorities were able to connect his online activity to his personally identifying information. But this breach is different. It was as simple as a drive swiped off a desk, and it’s much harder to trace.

Netflix’s piracy division is reportedly “on high alert with the breach,” but still “disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards.” Basically, they’re keeping an eye out, but don’t want to pay the “Fortitude” team any money for the stolen content. They claim that Afram failed to properly protect the drive, but Afram says his team was only following Netflix’s instructions. He also claims that his associate producer told Netflix the drive was unencrypted, which should have been enough information to make Netflix store the drive in a more secure location.

We don’t really know who had access to the office where Netflix kept the unencrypted “Fortitude” screener, or who took it. Was it a disgruntled employee? A rival producer? A team of kids speed-running the building like it’s a Scientology hub? It’s unclear, but we may get more clues if the stolen film reappears somewhere online.

If you’d like to support the “Fortitude” team, avoid any leaks if/when they come out. If the movie gets a theatrical release, buy a ticket, or else legally watch it on whatever streaming service carries it on launch. I have a feeling it won’t be Netflix.

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