A seven-year, $45 million production, an all-star cast, and a master copy delivered on an unencrypted hard drive to Netflix for a screening request. Nine days later, the drive walked out of Netflix’s Hollywood offices on a thief’s arm. The film – Fortitude, a World War II spy thriller starring Nicolas Cage – had not yet been sold to a single distributor. That scenario sits at the center of a $105 million federal lawsuit filed in California on July 30, 2026, pitting Swiss producer Simon Afram and his company Op-Fortitude Ltd. against Netflix.
The lawsuit over Fortitude does not hinge on royalties, credits, or creative control. The question is what happens to the commercial value of an unreleased film when a master copy disappears into the unknown before a distribution deal has been signed. Afram’s legal team argues the answer is economic ruin, and Netflix is responsible for every cent.
What Is Fortitude and Why Does It Matter?
The film stars Cage as Duško Popov, a real-life spy widely believed to have inspired James Bond. Fortitude is based on Operation Fortitude, the World War II Allied deception campaign designed to convince Nazi Germany that D-Day would occur elsewhere. The campaign relied on a fake army, double agents, and false radio traffic.
Filmmaker Simon West, whose credits include Con Air and The Expendables 2, helmed the picture on 35mm film. The cast includes Matthew Goode (The Imitation Game), Ed Skrein (Jurassic World: Rebirth), Jordi Mollà (Mobland), Alice Eve (Star Trek Into Darkness), Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon), Art Malik (True Lies), Lukas Haas (Inception), Paul Anderson (Peaky Blinders), Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), and Ron Perlman.
According to Deadline, principal photography began September 8, 2025, in London. Simon Afram, a Swiss businessman, wrote the script and produced the film; according to his lawsuit, he spent seven years and $45 million bringing the project to the screen. The film wrapped in late October 2025 and was being shopped to distributors when the theft occurred.
Afram’s path to the screen was not smooth. In 2023, he sued Martin Scorsese, alleging the director took $500,000 to support his Fortitude script but failed to act. Scorsese’s team disputed the claim, arguing Afram had misunderstood the development process. The lawsuit settled in March 2024, with terms kept private.
Visual effects company Cinesite, whose London team has worked on No Time to Die and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was engaged to deliver large-scale digital environments, period-accurate military assets, and the integration of the famous “Ghost Army” inflatable decoys.
The Theft: How a Hard Drive Disappeared From Netflix’s Desk
Writer-producer Simon Afram and his company Op-Fortitude accuse Netflix of compromising the sale of Fortitude by losing a copy shared for screening. He seeks at least $105 million.
According to NBC News, Afram’s attorneys say the filmmakers delivered an unencrypted master copy of Fortitude to Netflix in June at the company’s request, so Netflix could evaluate whether to buy the rights. The complaint alleges the film’s associate producer, Daniel Haido, hand-delivered the unencrypted master and verbally instructed the employee to delete the files after the screening.
When the associate producer tried to retrieve the film, Netflix became unresponsive. More than a week later, after repeated pickup attempts, Netflix acknowledged via email that the film had been stolen.
The message came from Sean Berney, head of film acquisitions at Netflix. “This is a first for us,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week.”
Berney added that Netflix’s piracy teams were on alert and would monitor for unauthorized distribution. The email did not indicate whether Netflix had contacted law enforcement, according to the lawsuit. The suit also complains that Netflix refused to share details of its investigation or confirm whether it reported the theft to police.
The DCP Dispute: Who Is Responsible for the Encryption?
According to Variety, Afram’s lawsuit argues his team was following Netflix’s directions, which stated: “If the DCP is encrypted, please have the keys open from the time the asset arrives through EOD on 6/16.” The complaint says the associate producer informed Netflix that the DCP was unencrypted and asked that the film be deleted after the screening.
A digital cinema package, or DCP, is the standard delivery format for theatrical and pre-release screenings. An encrypted DCP requires a Key Delivery Message to be viewed – a security layer that renders stolen footage useless without the key. An unencrypted DCP has no such protection.
Sources at Netflix say it is standard to share unreleased films via a password-protected link or with an encrypted DCP that can only be viewed with a Key Delivery Message. The company’s position is that the absence of encryption is the producer’s problem. “Netflix disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards,” a company spokesperson said.
Netflix disputed the claim that the company requested an unlocked or unencrypted copy, saying security safeguards are standard practice and that the filmmakers voluntarily chose to provide an unencrypted version.
The Financial Stakes: What the Lawsuit Claims Was Destroyed
The central injury is not the cost of the film itself. It is the destruction of something more intangible: exclusivity.
The complaint states, “The film’s value depended in significant part on its exclusivity as an unreleased, first-to-market work.” The filing argues that “by losing control of the film, Netflix destroyed that exclusivity and materially, if not completely, impaired the film’s marketability.”
The complaint says test screenings projected an 82% “top-two box” audience score and conservatively estimated the movie would generate at least $112.5 million in revenue, roughly 2.5 times its production budget.
The lawsuit argues that “it is not fathomable that a sophisticated buyer would invest tens of millions of dollars to acquire the film and tens of millions more to market it while facing the constant risk that it could appear online to be viewed widely for free at any time.”
The plaintiffs contend that studios will be dissuaded from buying the rights, knowing a version could be released by a third party for free. Marketing will also be more difficult, which could undermine negotiations with potential buyers.
The plaintiffs said they have temporarily paused marketing and sales of Fortitude. For a film approaching awards season, a pause carries compounding costs. The suit frames this not as temporary inconvenience but as permanent structural damage.
As the producer of a high-budget independent film, Afram was navigating a distribution market where platforms like Netflix represent the most powerful potential buyers. With subscription costs rising across major platforms, the free streaming services landscape has grown intensely competitive for independent content owners seeking acquisition deals. Losing leverage in that market could be catastrophic for a film that has not yet closed a distribution agreement.
Netflix’s Counter-Position: Extortion Claims and the Investigation
Netflix has not limited its response to the legal question of who bears liability for an unencrypted delivery. The company has accused Afram of extortion.
Netflix said it declined to share details of its ongoing investigation with the law firm representing Afram, “given their hostile attempts to extort money from Netflix over this situation, including immediately demanding $165 million for the movie.”
The $165 million demand – which exceeds the $105 million sought in the lawsuit – adds complexity to the public record. The plaintiffs’ attorneys have not publicly addressed the extortion accusation.
In its public statement, Netflix said: “While we do not own the rights to Fortitude, we take content security seriously and have taken extra measures to support the filmmaker and his team. This includes conducting a thorough investigation and offering to monitor known piracy sites for any unauthorized distribution or sale.”
An unencrypted master copy of the movie was in one of several drives stolen from Netflix’s office last month. In an investigation, the company concluded that the other stolen drives were empty, according to a source at Netflix. That finding, if accurate, would suggest the Fortitude drive was either specifically targeted or that the theft was opportunistic and the other drives happened to contain nothing of value.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the incident caused financial losses by compromising the film’s first-to-market exclusivity and distribution value, forcing the plaintiffs to temporarily pause marketing and sales efforts ahead of awards season.
A Pattern or an Anomaly? Content Security in the Streaming Era
The Fortitude incident arrives at a moment when piracy monitoring has become a standard line item in distribution budgets. For major studios, the security protocols around unreleased content are extensive. Encrypted delivery, watermarked screeners, password-protected streaming links, and timed access are all common.
The dispute over what Netflix’s instructions actually required is likely to be one of the most intensely contested factual questions in the litigation.
Physical theft of media from studio premises, while uncommon, is not unprecedented. What is unusual is the combination of an unencrypted master copy, a delivery made at the request of a prospective buyer, and a theft that was not communicated to the rights holder for over a week after Netflix’s own internal discovery. The lawsuit argues that earlier notification might have allowed the plaintiffs to take protective action.
The filmmakers argue that the stolen drive has damaged the film’s value because any potential distributor must now be informed that an unsecured copy was taken before release. That disclosure obligation, which would attach to any future sales negotiation, is arguably the most durable injury alleged – and the one least capable of being remedied by any piracy monitoring program Netflix might offer.
The Legal Theory: Negligence, Duty of Care, and Consequential Damages
The complaint, filed in California federal court, accuses Netflix of compromising the sale of the spy thriller by losing a copy shared for screening. The legal theory rests on negligence and breach of duty of care. The plaintiffs’ argument is that once Netflix took possession of the material – regardless of whether it requested encrypted or unencrypted delivery – it assumed a duty to safeguard it with reasonable care. Leaving an unencrypted master copy of a $45 million film on an office desk from which it could be physically removed by anyone who gained access to the building, the complaint implies, does not meet that standard.
Afram’s lawsuit argues that Netflix’s negligence has jeopardized the film’s exclusivity, thus harming its market value. The consequential damages theory – that the loss of a physical copy causes economic harm measured not by the replacement cost of the drive but by the impaired value of the entire film – is an aggressive but not unprecedented argument in entertainment litigation.
Netflix’s defense, as stated publicly, relies on two pillars. First, that the risk of loss for an unencrypted delivery rests with the party that chose not to encrypt. Second, that the pre-litigation demand of $165 million, framed by Netflix as extortion, undermines the good faith of the plaintiff’s position. Whether a court agrees with either argument remains to be seen. The case was filed in federal court in California, the standard jurisdiction for entertainment industry disputes of this scale.
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Where This Leaves Fortitude
A lawsuit cannot restore what was taken. Afram can win every legal argument in the complaint – negligence, duty of care, consequential damages – and still be left with a film whose market position is permanently altered by the fact of the theft itself. Any distribution negotiation going forward carries a disclosure burden that did not exist before June 2026. A buyer will know. Their insurers will know. Their marketing teams will factor it in. Money from a court judgment does not erase that calculation from a prospective buyer’s spreadsheet.
What the Fortitude case may ultimately do is force a conversation in the industry about the chain of custody for unreleased material shared in pre-acquisition screenings. Independent producers operate in a market where the power sits almost entirely with the platforms and studios they are courting. Delivering a copy of your film to a prospective buyer is not optional – it is how the sale process works. The question of who bears the security obligation when that material is lost or stolen has, apparently, not been spelled out clearly enough to prevent a $105 million federal lawsuit. That gap will now have to be closed, one way or another, regardless of how this particular case resolves.
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AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.