Movie producer Simon Afram has filed a lawsuit against Netflix seeking $105 million in damages, alleging that an unreleased Nicolas Cage film was stolen from the storage facilities of the streaming company in Hollywood.
According to the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in California, the filmmakers delivered an unencrypted master copy of the World War II drama “Fortitude” to Netflix in June at the request of the company. Afram invested more than $45 million in the production, which took seven years to complete, and was in the process of negotiating a sale of the film to Netflix or another distributor.
Nine days after delivery, the plaintiffs were informed through a Netflix email that a number of drives had been stolen from company desks that week, including the one containing “Fortitude,” the lawsuit said.
The producers argue that the value of the film has been destroyed because distributors are unlikely to purchase a film that could surface on piracy sites. They contend that Netflix failed to adequately secure the hard drive containing the master copy.
The lawsuit states that no sophisticated buyer would invest tens of millions of dollars to acquire the film, and tens of millions more to market it, while facing the risk that it could appear online for free viewing at any time. It seeks at least $105 million in damages.
In response, Netflix issued a statement disputing any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without industry-standard safeguards. The company said that while it does not own the rights to “Fortitude,” it takes content security seriously and has taken extra measures to support the filmmaker and his team, including investigating the theft and monitoring piracy sites for unauthorized distribution.
Netflix also said it had declined to share investigation findings with the attorneys of Afram, citing what it described as hostile attempts to extort money from the company rather than work in good faith to resolve the matter.
