Netflix Sued for $105M Over Lost Cage WWII Film
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- Simon Afram filed a $105 million lawsuit against Netflix after the company lost an unencrypted copy of his WWII film 'Fortitude,' starring Nicolas Cage and Ben Kingsley, which he spent seven years and $45 million developing.
- An associate producer delivered a digital cinema package to Netflix headquarters in June so the company could consider buying the rights; after Netflix became unresponsive for over a week, director of original film Sean Berney admitted via email that drives had been stolen from office desks.
- Netflix disputes responsibility, arguing the film was delivered without industry-standard safeguards (encrypted DCPs with Key Delivery Messages or password-protected links); Afram's complaint counters that his team followed Netflix's own encryption-key instructions and informed the company the DCP was unencrypted.
- The film has a troubled history: in 2023 Afram sued director Martin Scorsese for allegedly pocketing $500,000 as an executive producer and doing nothing to help the project; the parties settled out of court the following year.
- Netflix accuses Afram's law firm of 'hostile attempts to extort money,' saying they immediately demanded $165 million rather than cooperate in good faith; Afram's suit argues Netflix's negligence has harmed the film's market value and that the company has refused to share details of its investigation or say whether it reported the theft to police.
- Berney suggested the thieves were likely selling the stolen drives for scrap, and sources say there is so far no sign the film has leaked online; Netflix says it is monitoring piracy sites for any unauthorized distribution.
Why it matters: Afram sunk seven years and $45 million of his own money into a star-driven WWII drama that has yet to reach release; a Netflix acquisition was a plausible path to market, and the dispute over who bears responsibility for the lost copy may now determine whether the filmmaker is compensated or left with a film whose exclusivity has been permanently compromised.
