Fortitude Producer Adds Defamation Claim To Netflix Lawsuit
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- Simon Afram and production company Op-Fortitude Limited added a defamation claim to their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Netflix over the alleged theft of an unencrypted hard drive containing the WWII spy thriller 'Fortitude.'
- Afram's legal team contests Netflix's extortion characterization, asserting that their first letter on June 29 only requested information and a meeting, and that the $165 million demand came on July 1 — after Netflix refused to cooperate on June 30.
- Netflix's original statement accused Afram's counsel of 'hostile attempts to extort money' and said he was 'immediately demanding $165 million rather than work with us in good faith,' a framing the amended complaint calls Netflix falsely accusing Afram of 'a serious crime' instead of addressing 'its own negligence or recklessness.'
- A Netflix executive emailed on June 25 about 'someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks,' roughly a week after the June 16 screening, despite the DCP being unencrypted and playable without a key, according to the lawsuit.
- The film 'Fortitude,' directed by Simon West, cost over $45 million to produce and stars Nicolas Cage as real-life double agent Dusko Popov, alongside Matthew Goode, Ben Kingsley, Ron Perlman, and Michael Sheen.
- Netflix disputes bearing risk of loss for a film delivered 'without the proper industry-standard safeguards' and says a company source has seen no evidence the film has been leaked.
Why it matters: A $45 million unencrypted film was allegedly stolen from Netflix's offices, and now the legal fight hinges on whether Afram's $165 million demand was extortion or a reasonable response after Netflix refused theft details. The defamation claim turns on whose timeline — Afram's June 29 information request or Netflix's 'immediate demand' framing — a court credits.
