Netflix is being sued for roughly $105 million in California federal court by the writer and producer of the upcoming Nicolas Cage-led film Fortitude, after the streaming giant confirmed that an unreleased master copy of the film was pilfered when “someone stole a good amount of drives” from its Sunset Bronson Studios office in Los Angeles.
This news comes via The Hollywood Reporter, which states that Simon Afram and his production company, Op-Fortitude, lodged a lawsuit against Netflix on July 30. According to the plaintiffs, a master copy of the upcoming historical World War II film was hand-delivered to Netflix’s LA office on June 15, as the streaming company had expressed interest in purchasing the distribution rights.
Then, in an email from its Head of Film Acquisitions, Sean Berney, dated June 25, Netflix confirmed that the film had reportedly been stolen: “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 out [sic] security teams to no luck. Our piracy teams are on high alert with the breach and will monitor.”
As the plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit, Netflix reportedly refused to involve the Los Angeles Police Department in its own internal investigation. Netflix also refused to comment on the ongoing lawsuit, but the law firm representing the company in California federal court referred to Op-Fortitude’s claim as a “hostile attempt to extort money.”
As Fortitude currently has no planned release date, due in part to the fact that no distributor is currently attached to the project, its producers stated in the lawsuit that the theft of its master copy may harm its chances of selling it to another distribution company. As of writing, the film has yet to appear on any torrenting sites, nor has any alleged thief been identified.