A new lawsuit claims Netflix did not safeguard an as-yet-unreleased Nicolas Cage WWII movie, which allegedly was just sitting around on a hard drive until somebody stole it. That may read like a Hollywood elevator pitch for a movie that would likely star Cage, but it’s the gist of a very real 16-page complaint filed with a federal trial court in California.
A British company called Op-Fortitude, which is run by a Swiss citizen named Simon Afram, claims to have spent more than $45 million making the movie, titled Fortitude, which it has been shopping around. The movie, which the lawsuit says is “tonally in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven meets Inglourious Basterds,” stars Cage as Duško Popov, a real-life spy who may have inspired the James Bond character.
“The secret mission, called Operation FORTITUDE, involved a network of double agents in cooperation with the British Army and Allied Nations who set a trap against Adolf Hitler and his army,” the complaint contends. “The trap deployed strategic deception elements, including a fictitious army complete with fake tanks, aircraft, and ships, film set designers and stage actors, false radio and wireless messages, and much more. Operation FORTITUDE decisively changed the course of World War II and paved the way for a free world.”
It also stars Ben Kingsley, Ron Perlman, Matthew Goode, Michael Sheen, Alice Eve, and others. Filmmaker Simon West (Con Air, The Expendables 2) directed the picture, on 35mm film, no less, to make it look authentic to WWII era. The lawsuit suggests it took seven years to make the film.
Afram and Op-Fortitude allege they gave Netflix an unencrypted digital copy of the film (DCP) on June 16. Per the filing, nine days later, a Netflix exec, Sean Berney, sent an email, included as an exhibit, with the subject line “Stolen DCP.” “This is a first for us,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week.” He wrote that the company’s security team was investigating the theft and that its piracy team was monitoring for leaks. His opinion was that the drives were stolen “for scrap” and likely nothing would come of it. He offered to reimburse the cost of the drive.
The plaintiffs want far more than the cost of a hard drive, though. They contend the film stood to break even, which they calculate as 2.5 times the production cost, or $112.5 million. “The Film’s value depended in significant part on its exclusivity as an unreleased, first-to-market work,” the lawsuit contends. “By losing control of the Film, Netflix destroyed that exclusivity and materially, if not completely, impaired the Film’s marketability.” The complaint further claims that Netflix’s security has not been cooperative with the plaintiff and that they don’t even know if they filed a police report.
Afram and Op-Fortitude want Netflix to pay them “at least $105,000,000, plus additional amounts according to proof at trial,” as well as interest and other damages.
“Netflix disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards,” a Netflix spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. “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,” the spokesperson continued. “We have declined to share anything about our ongoing investigation with the law firm representing Simon Afram, given their hostile attempts to extort money from Netflix over this situation — including immediately demanding $165 million for the film rather than work with us in good faith.”
The company has not seen any evidence so far that Fortitude has leaked. The lingering question is, can Nic Cage play a convincing lawyer?
