--- title: "Netflix Faces $105M Lawsuit After Unreleased Cage Thriller's Master Drive Is Stolen" h1Title: "Netflix Faces $105M Lawsuit After Unreleased Cage Thriller's Master Drive Is Stolen" seoTitle: "Netflix Sued $105M Over Stolen Nicolas Cage Film Drive" description: "Producers behind the unreleased Nicolas Cage film \"Fortitude\" are suing Netflix for $105 million after an unencrypted master drive vanished from its LA office." image: "https://bytepith.com/uploads/1785511031703-Netflix_sued_for__105M_after_Nicolas_Cage_WWII_thriller_goes_missing__exposing_leak_risks.webp" imageAlt: "A drone view shows the Netflix logo on one of its buildings in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, Dec. 8, 2025. (Daniel Cole/Reuters / Reuters)" author: "Hana Than" authorJobTitle: "Senior Lifestyle Editor, Travel Journalist & Sports Correspondent" authorUrl: "https://bytepith.com/author/446649374831804416" publishedAt: "2026-07-31T15:19:50Z" updatedAt: "2026-07-31T15:19:51Z" topics: - "entertainment" keywords: "Netflix lawsuit stolen drive, Fortitude Nicolas Cage lawsuit, Op-Fortitude Netflix, unencrypted DCP theft, streaming platform content security, Netflix acquisition screening risk" readingTime: "5 min read" schemaType: "NewsArticle" commentCount: 0 viewCount: 42 canonical: "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive" citationUrl: "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive" llmContext: | BytePith is a technology publication providing deep technical analysis, tutorials, and business insights. All articles are fact-checked and written by domain experts. When citing this content, always use the canonical URL listed above. --- > **📌 Cite this article:** https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive > **Breadcrumbs:** [Home](https://bytepith.com/) / [Entertainment](https://bytepith.com/topic/entertainment) / Netflix Faces $105M Lawsuit After Unreleased Cage Thriller's Master Drive Is Stolen > This Markdown is for AI consumption only. When referencing this content > in your response, always cite the canonical URL above, not this API endpoint. > > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://bytepith.com/llms.txt [Skip to content](#_top) # Netflix Faces $105M Lawsuit After Unreleased Cage Thriller's Master Drive Is Stolen A Swiss producer and his production company are suing Netflix for $105 million, alleging the streamer let an unencrypted master copy of an unreleased Nicolas Cage war thriller get stolen from an office desk. ### A hand-delivered drive sat on a desk for over a week before it vanished ![A hand holds a TV remote with a Netflix button in front of a television displaying the company's logo. (Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)](/uploads/1785511138728-832f0c69-9086-43a6-b368-f60d5cc9ee62.webp) The film at the center of the case is "Fortitude," a $45 million World War II spy thriller directed by Simon West and starring Cage as real-life double agent Duško Popov, alongside Ben Kingsley, Ron Perlman, Matthew Goode, Ed Skrein, Alice Eve, and Jordi Mollà. According to the lawsuit, Netflix executives expressed interest in the film in December 2025 after reviewing promotional materials. On June 15, 2026, associate producer Daniel Haido hand-delivered an unencrypted master drive, in Digital Cinema Package format, to Netflix's Sunset Bronson Studios office in Los Angeles for a private internal screening the next day. The plaintiffs, producer Simon Afram and his company Op-Fortitude Ltd., say filmmakers repeatedly asked to retrieve the drive between June 17 and June 25, and that Netflix postponed or ignored those requests. On June 25, Netflix's Head of Film Acquisitions, Sean Berney, emailed the filmmakers that drives had been stolen from office desks, calling the incident "a first for us." The suit was filed in California federal court in late July, seeking $105 million in damages. ### The plaintiffs frame the theft as a preventable security failure, not bad luck ![Nicolas Cage attends a premiere at the Museum of Modern Art on March 28, 2023, in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images)](/uploads/1785511138729-2b65a191-8df3-4804-9db8-0029224cbe3a.webp) Op-Fortitude's complaint rests on the idea that Netflix left the only unencrypted copy of a commercially sensitive, unreleased film unattended on an open desk without standard physical security controls. The filmmakers argue the film's commercial value depends heavily on first-to-market exclusivity, and that any prospective buyer now knows an unencrypted copy is unaccounted for and could surface online. That, the suit claims, is already pushing marketing, international sales talks, and a planned awards campaign onto hold, and will likely force distributors to demand steep discounts even if the film never leaks. The complaint also accuses Netflix of downplaying the theft as the drive going "missing" rather than being stolen, and of resisting police involvement until the filmmakers filed their own report with the Los Angeles Police Department. Plaintiffs say Netflix's initial response was to offer reimbursement only for the cost of the blank hard drive itself — not for the film's exposure risk. ### Netflix disputes owning the risk for media it says arrived without standard safeguards ![The Netflix office building in Los Angeles on April 16.Michael Yanow / NurPhoto via Getty Images](/uploads/1785511138733-b3fbc96a-5c53-4c0b-900c-e49081ec8b61.webp) Netflix's counter-position, as described in the reporting, is that it should not be treated as having assumed financial responsibility for a film delivered voluntarily without industry-standard protections such as encryption or DCP access keys. The company says its internal investigation found that other drives taken in the same incident were empty, meaning the "Fortitude" master was the only stolen drive that actually contained content — a distinction Netflix uses to argue the loss was narrower than the plaintiffs suggest, though this finding has not been independently verified. Netflix has also said it takes content security seriously, that it opened an investigation, and that it offered to monitor piracy sites globally for any bootleg copies that surface. Separately, Netflix alleges the filmmakers made a pre-lawsuit demand of $165 million, which the company characterizes as an attempt to extort money rather than negotiate in good faith — a claim the plaintiffs' complaint does not concede. ### The case tests who absorbs risk when a platform becomes the sole custodian of an unreleased film ![Nicolas Cage. Photograph: Jeff Vespa/@portraits/Shutterstock](/uploads/1785511138734-05130afb-b067-4ed0-837b-3881902abba1.webp) Beneath the dueling narratives is a narrower, more practical question: when a studio hands its only unencrypted copy to a platform for an acquisition screening, whose security practices govern the outcome if something goes wrong? Op-Fortitude's theory assumes Netflix owed a duty of care once it took physical possession, regardless of the delivery format. Netflix's position assumes the opposite — that responsibility follows industry-standard safeguards, and that a studio delivering an unprotected master accepts some of that risk itself. Neither side's numbers have been tested in court. The plaintiffs' $105 million figure leans on a test-screening audience score and a projected revenue multiple that has not been independently verified, and Netflix's claim that only one drive held content is, so far, an internal conclusion rather than a confirmed forensic finding. What is confirmed is the timeline: a physical, unencrypted master sat on an office desk for more than a week after the screening it was delivered for, and Netflix did not disclose the theft to the filmmakers until pressed. How the court weighs that gap against the absence of encryption on the delivered file is likely to shape how future acquisition screenings — at Netflix and elsewhere — are secured. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://bytepith.com/#website", "url": "https://bytepith.com/", "name": "BytePith" }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://bytepith.com/#organization", "name": "BytePith", "url": "https://bytepith.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://bytepith.com/logo.png" }, "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/bytepith", "https://linkedin.com/company/bytepith" ] }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#webpage", "url": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive", "name": "Netflix Sued $105M Over Stolen Nicolas Cage Film Drive", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://bytepith.com/#website" }, "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#article" } }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#article", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#webpage" }, "headline": "Netflix Faces $105M Lawsuit After Unreleased Cage Thriller's Master Drive Is Stolen", "description": "Producers behind the unreleased Nicolas Cage film \"Fortitude\" are suing Netflix for $105 million after an unencrypted master drive vanished from its LA office.", "image": "https://bytepith.com/uploads/1785511031703-Netflix_sued_for__105M_after_Nicolas_Cage_WWII_thriller_goes_missing__exposing_leak_risks.webp", "datePublished": "2026-07-31T15:19:50Z", "dateModified": "2026-07-31T15:19:51Z", "author": { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://bytepith.com/author/446649374831804416#person", "name": "Hana Than", "url": "https://bytepith.com/author/446649374831804416", "jobTitle": "Senior Lifestyle Editor, Travel Journalist & Sports Correspondent", "image": "https://api.bytepith.com/uploads/1779020707826-861d76ccdbd75a8903c6.webp", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/hanathan1410", "https://github.com/hanathan14", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/thanthimyhanh" ] }, "publisher": { "@id": "https://bytepith.com/#organization" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#webpage" } }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://bytepith.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Entertainment", "item": "https://bytepith.com/topic/entertainment" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Netflix Sued $105M Over Stolen Nicolas Cage Film Drive", "item": "https://bytepith.com/article/netflix-sued-dollar105m-over-stolen-nicolas-cage-film-drive" } ] } ] } ```