Netflix Sued for $105 Million After Unreleased Nicolas Cage Film Is Stolen
The lawsuit centers on who bears responsibility for protecting a film's master copy once it is handed over to a potential distributor, a question that could shape how studios handle pre-release materials.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
The producer of the unreleased Nicolas Cage film Fortitude is suing Netflix for at least $105 million after a storage drive containing the master copy was stolen from a Netflix office in Los Angeles. The suit claims the film's market value was destroyed because piracy risk now scares off distributors.
Simon Afram, the screenwriter and producer of Fortitude, filed the suit in California federal court in July 2026 on behalf of his production company Op-Fortitude. The film, which took over seven years to complete and cost more than $45 million, was delivered to Netflix's office at Sunset Bronson Studios on June 15 after the streamer showed interest in acquiring distribution rights.
Ten days later, Netflix's head of film acquisitions, Sean Barney, emailed the production team to say that someone had stolen a number of drives from an office desk the previous week, including the one holding Fortitude. The film, directed by Simon West and starring Cage as double agent Dusko Popov, has no distributor or release date. Netflix disputes liability, arguing the unencrypted drive was not protected to industry standards and that it does not hold rights to the film.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.