Rolling Stone52%
Netflix Sued After Unreleased Nicolas Cage WWII Movie Allegedly Stolen From Office 23%
By Kory Grow18%
7/30/2026, 2:38:52 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Ad Hominem, and Red Herring, with Self-Serving Bias as the most egregious example at 17% saturation with 101 hits. Analysis detected 695 faulty-reasoning hits from 595 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36% and a BS Rank of 23% (17,133 of 22,243 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 77.00% of the article peer group.
The producer of Fortitude, a movie "tonally in the vein of Ocean's 11 or Inglourious Basterds," wants $105 million for the alleged gaffe
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 lawsuit suggests it took seven years to make the film.
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.
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.
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 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.
“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.”
“The lingering question is, can Nic Cage play a convincing lawyer?”
Analysis
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