A Swiss businessman who spent seven years and $45 million making a Second World War film starring Nicolas Cage and Ben Kingsley is suing Netflix for $105 million after the streaming company says the movie was stolen from its offices (Variety).

Simon Afram wrote the script for "Fortitude" and shepherded the project through years of production. In June 2026, an associate producer dropped off a digital cinema package — the hard-drive format used to deliver films to cinemas and screeners to buyers — at Netflix headquarters so the company could consider acquiring the rights. The drive was unencrypted, and the associate producer asked that the film be deleted after the screening.

When the associate producer tried to retrieve the film, Netflix stopped responding. More than a week later, the company acknowledged by email that the drive had been stolen. Sean Berney, Netflix's director of original film, wrote: "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." Berney suggested in the same email that the thieves were probably just selling the drives for scrap.

Afram filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (docket gov.uscourts.cacd.1031652). The complaint argues that Netflix had a duty to store the film securely rather than leave it on a desk where it could be taken. The $105 million figure represents the value Afram places on the film and the damage done by its loss.

Netflix has pushed back firmly. The company said it conducted a thorough investigation and offered to monitor known piracy sites for any unauthorised distribution of "Fortitude." As of 30 July 2026, Netflix sources said there was no sign that the film had leaked online. The company also accused Afram's law firm of "hostile attempts to extort money" and "immediately demanding $165 million for the film rather than work with us in good faith." In a statement, Netflix said: "Netflix disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards."

This is not Afram's first high-profile legal dispute over "Fortitude." In 2023, he sued director Martin Scorsese, accusing him of taking $500,000 to serve as executive producer and then doing nothing to help the film. Scorsese countersued, and the parties settled out of court in 2024 (Variety).

The dispute turns on a question familiar to anyone in the film business: when you hand over your work to a potential buyer, who is responsible for keeping it safe? Afram says Netflix should never have left an unencrypted drive sitting on a desk. Netflix says the producer delivered the film without the safeguards the industry expects, and that the risk was not theirs to bear. A federal court in California will now sort out who is right.