An allegedly stolen Nicolas Cage movie is at the center of a messy legal drama between Netflix and the film’s producer. Simon Afram and his production company, Op-Fortitude, sued Netflix on Wednesday after a copy of its upcoming World War II movie, Fortitude, was allegedly stolen from the streaming company’s Hollywood offices. The lawsuit seeks at least $105 million in damages, arguing that the theft has jeopardized the future of the movie. According to the complaint, Netflix was considering buying rights to the film and arranged to screen it on June 16. An associate producer delivered a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) to Netflix the day before the screening. A DCP is a hard drive used to screen movies in theaters. Netflix’s delivery instructions said that if the DCP was encrypted, the filmmakers should keep its digital keys active through the end of June 16. The complaint says the producer instead delivered an unencrypted DCP and told Netflix, both verbally and in writing, to delete its files after the screening.
In the following weeks, the filmmakers repeatedly tried to arrange a time to pick up the DCP, but Netflix allegedly kept postponing. Finally, on June 25, Sean Berney, director of Netflix’s original film division, sent them an email with the subject line “Stolen DCP.”
