Netflix sued for $105m over stolen Nicolas Cage war thriller
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- Netflix is being sued for $105 million by the makers of "Fortitude," a $45m-budgeted WWII spy thriller starring Nicolas Cage, after hard drives were stolen from the streamer's Los Angeles office, one of which contained the unreleased film.
- Netflix received a digital copy of "Fortitude" in June after expressing interest in promotional materials; the producers instructed Netflix to delete the files afterward, and Netflix disputes that it bears risk of loss for content delivered without industry-standard safeguards.
- Sean Berney, Netflix's head of film acquisitions, wrote in an email that the company had never been the subject of such a theft before, noting that security and piracy teams were "on high alert" and monitoring for unauthorized distribution.
- The "Fortitude" filmmakers allege Netflix initially failed to disclose whether a police report was filed and later declined their request to involve the LAPD after the filmmakers filed their own report.
- The lawsuit claims the theft has jeopardized any future sale of the film, pausing its international release strategy and awards campaign and putting the filmmakers' $45m investment "and the significant value of the film itself" at risk.
- "Fortitude" is a London-set espionage thriller directed by Simon West, starring Cage alongside Matthew Goode, Michael Sheen, and Ben Kingsley; Martin Scorsese was previously attached before a separate lawsuit by screenwriter Simon Afram — who said he spent seven years developing the project — was settled.
Why it matters: The filmmakers say Netflix's alleged mishandling of a stolen $45m film — and what they describe as dismissiveness afterward — has frozen both the film's commercial release and its awards prospects. Netflix, for its part, denies bearing responsibility for content delivered without proper safeguards, setting up a fight over whose duty it is to secure unreleased material once a studio hands a copy to a distributor.
