Simon Afram and Op-Fortitude have sued Netflix in California federal court after an unencrypted master copy of Fortitude was stolen from Netflix’s Los Angeles office, pushing the dispute over the unreleased Nicolas Cage World War II spy thriller into court and seeking at least $105 million.
The filing on Thursday says the loss of the copy damaged the film’s sale prospects because any future buyer would have to be told the material was stolen. That matters now because Netflix first showed interest after receiving promotional materials in December 2025, then asked for a working cut in June, putting the film on a path toward possible sale before the theft changed the value of what remained.
Fortitude was handed to Netflix on June 15, when a producer delivered the drive to its office at Sunset Bronson Studios. The producer allegedly said the DCP was unencrypted and asked Netflix to delete the files after the screening and let him know when the drive could be picked up. Ten days later, a Netflix executive disclosed that it had been stolen. Sean Berney later wrote on June 25 that someone had stolen a good amount of drives from Netflix’s office desks the previous week, calling it “a first for us” and saying the team had been working through the breach with its security teams to no luck.
That sequence is the heart of the fight over who should carry the loss. Netflix says it does not bear the risk of losing a film delivered without proper industry-standard safeguards, and says it took extra measures after the theft, including a thorough investigation and monitoring known piracy sites for any unauthorized distribution or sale. Afram and Op-Fortitude argue the opposite: that Netflix lost the copy, then refused their request to involve the Los Angeles Police Department after they filed their own report.
What remains unanswered is whether the stolen drive was copied, leaked or otherwise shared after it disappeared from the office. The lawsuit’s dollar figure suggests the damage claim goes beyond the missing hardware itself and into the value of the movie, the sale that may have been lost, and the cost of a disclosure that could hang over any later distribution. For now, the case turns on one object, one office and one question of responsibility that neither side is backing away from.
