A theft at Netflix’s Los Angeles office has landed the streamer in a $105 million lawsuit.
Writer-producer Simon Afram and his company, Op-Fortitude, filed suit on Thursday in California federal court, accusing Netflix of jeopardizing the sale of their World War II spy thriller Fortitudeafter an unencrypted master copy of the film was stolen from the company’s offices.
According to the complaint, Netflix executives expressed interest in acquiring Fortitudeafter receiving promotional materials in December 2025, then requested a working cut in June.
The filmmakers say Netflix asked them to deliver the film via a digital cinema package, a delivery format designed to limit unauthorized access, so the company could screen it internally.
A producer for the film hand-delivered the unencrypted drive to Netflix’s Sunset Bronson Studios office on June 15, allegedly instructing the company to delete the files after screening and to notify him once the drive was ready for pickup.
Ten days later, according to the lawsuit, a Netflix executive disclosed that the drive had been stolen.
Netflix’s head of film acquisitions, Sean Berney, addressed the theft in an email included in the complaint: “This is a first for us. Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week. We’ve been working through this with our security teams to no luck. Our piracy teams are on high alert with the breach and will monitor.”
The company later determined that the other stolen drives were empty.
The lawsuit accuses Netflix of refusing to say whether it filed a police report, and claims the company declined a request from the filmmakers to involve the LAPD even after they filed their own report.
For its part, Netflix maintains it isn’t liable, saying in a statement that it disputes bearing “the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards,” while adding that it has offered to help monitor piracy sites for unauthorized distribution.
Netflix also said it stopped sharing details of its investigation after a law firm representing Afram demanded $165 million in what the company described as a “hostile attempt to extort money” rather than working things out in good faith.
The filmmakers argue the theft has made the film substantially harder to sell, since any prospective distributor would need to be informed that an unencrypted copy is out there before a release, potentially complicating acquisition talks, insurance coverage and marketing, while raising the risk of an online leak ahead of a commercial debut.
They say they’ve paused sales efforts despite interest from multiple domestic and international distributors, putting the film’s release plans and awards campaign in jeopardy.
Fortitude, directed by Simon West, dramatises a true story of British Intelligence operatives outsmarting Nazi leadership, and stars Nicolas Cage alongside Matthew Goode, Ed Skrein, Jordi Mollà and Alice Eve.
2026-07-31 09:56:00
