Netflix sued for $105M after unencrypted DCP of unreleased movie is stolen

[Jim Cassedy]

[
The claim that the other drives were empty doesn't pass the smell test, either.
How many of us have a stack of truly empty drives sitting around in our booths?
All this says to me that there is rather more to this incident than has entered the
public domain.

The the ludicrous 'empty drives sitting around on office desks' statement caused a major
involuntary eye roll when I first read it. I've dealt with Netflix folks during film fests and press
screenings where advance/unreleased content has been played, and they've always had me
and/or the venue jump through several security hoops, so they're well aware of the value of
such intellectual property. The fact that they didn't file a police report is also a head-scratcher
for me. I agree with Leo that there's more to this incident than we're being told.

[Leo Enticknap]

This is getting murkier. Source.

LAPD investigating Nicolas Cage movie stolen from Netflix amid $105M lawsuit over mystery disappearance
Published Aug. 21, 2026, 9:45 a.m. ET

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the case of the missing Nicolas Cage movie at Netflix, Page Six Hollywood has learned.

A source tells us that the LAPD is officially working on the alleged movie heist, after Simon Afram, the screenwriter, producer and financier of the missing film, “Fortitude,” personally filed a police report. We’re told that the investigation is ongoing.

Two months have passed since the unreleased WWII thriller mysteriously vanished from inside Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters. And the filmmakers behind the $45 million film allege they know as much today as they did in June when they first learned that an unencrypted master copy of their film was swiped from an office desk at the streaming giant along with other drives.

Sources associated with the project say Afram filed the report himself after it was unclear if Netflix ever reported the incident to the cops.

Netflix did not respond to a request for comment.

When we reached out to the LAPD yesterday, its media relations division could not confirm nor deny that a police report had been filed by either party. (But we were told that police never responded to Netflix’s Hollywood HQ during the week the theft occurred, which would be a standard part of the police filing process.)

According to a $105 million lawsuit filed late last month by Afram over the incident, a Netflix executive acknowledged in a June 25 email to two “Fortitude” producers that the Simon West-directed movie was “stolen” and described the incident as a “breach.”

According to an exhibit in the lawsuit, the Netflix staffer wrote to the filmmakers: “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. Our piracy teams are on high alert with the breach and will monitor.”

The filmmakers behind “Fortitude” are also unaware of Netflix filing any type of insurance claim for the film that went missing sometime between June 16 — when Netflix screened the unreleased film via a digital cinema package (DCP) — and June 25, when the “Fortitude” team was made aware of the situation.

Netflix has previously said in a statement to Page Six Hollywood when we first broke the news of the film theft that it was conducting its own investigation, and that it declined to share the results with the filmmakers.

“Netflix disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards. 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,” the statement said. It added: “This includes conducting a thorough investigation and offering to monitor known piracy sites for any unauthorized distribution or sale. 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 statement, however, then triggered Afram to amend his initial $105 million complaint against Netflix for losing the film, we reported, by adding defamation to his list of claims on Aug. 4 over the streamer’s “extortionist” characterization. Netflix has not commented further.

An exasperated source close to the film told us: “Eight weeks of internal investigation, what’s the result? No police report filled [by Netflix], insurance not informed nor involved. Why? No collaboration with us nor LAPD. Why?”

The incredulous insider added: “What happened with the camera footage, security protocol? How was it possible to keep such valuable assets without security measures on an open office desk?”

Sources say that the filmmakers’ production insurance company is investigating the matter, and has conducted outreach to Netflix — but that Netflix allegedly has not responded to their insurers.

On July 29, Afram first sued Netflix in federal court in California’s Central District for breach of contract, we reported, claiming “careless and negligent treatment” on the part of Netflix.

The amended complaint says: “Netflix and its attorneys have refused to answer any questions about the circumstances of the theft, their supposed investigation, the disposition of the DCP, or even whether Netflix had filed a police report.”

Netflix has adamantly denied responsibility for the theft.

But Afram’s lawsuit also offers a counter narrative to Netflix’s allegation that the filmmakers didn’t use industry-standard safeguards. The suit notes that “Fortitude” associate producer Daniel Haido hand-delivered an unencrypted DCP of the film to Netflix at the streamer’s request — a standard transaction that takes place when distributors are interested in buying a film and ask for a version that is suitable for use in a commercial theater.

Haido also had given Netflix explicit instructions both verbally and in writing that, “the files be deleted after the screening,” the previously filed court docs claim.

Page Six Hollywood has spoken to other industry filmmakers who were rattled by news of the bizarre case and Netflix’s response, noting how commonplace DCPs are in the indie sale process and how financially devastating it would be to have a film stolen pre-release.

Two interesting takeaways here:

Netflix is refusing to cooperate with the police and even its own insurers - bizarre. In particular, non-cooperation with the insurers will presumably mean that they would reject any claim resulting from Netflix losing the lawsuit.

The crucial one, however, is that Netflix and Avram appear to be in dispute as to whether Netflix asked for the DCP to be unencrypted ("...hand delivered an unencrypted DCP of the film to Netflix at the streamer's request..." ; "....a film delivered without the proper industry standard safeguards"). I do not accept the journalist's statement that passing around unencrypted DCPs of unreleased movies is "a standard transaction." Whenever I have handled them - most often at festivals, but also for Bel-Air residence screenings - the security has been more tight than usual, not less. KDMs often don't open until a few minutes before show times, and obtaining one for a tech check ahead of the screening is often very difficult.

But, as I predicted earlier, this lawsuit is going to hinge on whose decision it was to hand that DCP drive over to Netflix without encryption. In the absence of any objective proof (e.g. if the decision was made over the phone and never written down), Netflix refusing to cooperate even with its own insurance company would be likely to sway jurors toward believing Avram, I'd have thought.

The criminal investigation could be significant or a nothingburger: it will depend on if the thief simply wanted a $100 hard drive, or realized what (s)he had and tried to monetize it in any way. If the former, it's a trivial misdemeanor that the DA might not even believe is worth prosecuting.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I have no insider knowledge except as someone who handles world premiere DCPs at festivals... But I suspect how commonplace encrypted DCPs are or not in an insider industry to industry context is much more variable. Either the partner is a trusted one or not. Public exhibition venues are inherently in the non-trusted party camp. But Netflix's relationship to that studio team may be otherwise. If they are not trusted then encryption would be the norm. If they are a trusted partner then I think it would be much more likely the version being described is indeed quite common.

I think the encryption topic is kinda a distraction (although I agree there is a fundamental position dispute between the parties). Ultimately it is about was Neflix negligent in their handling of the content post screening or not. Obviously they can't be blamed for force majeure type things like an unexpected petty theft of a hard drive, but they could potentially be shown to have been negligent as originally alledged. Encrypted or not that film's content was not supposed to be "obtainable" via that hard drive after the netflix pre-screening, which it seems obviously it was.

It could be that internal pre-screenings are not as tightly scheduled with a trusted party, and it is more a "screen it when your schedule permits, but please delete it afterwards" type affair.

Only thing I would add is that securely deleting things from hard drives is actually quite difficult and requires a bunch of time or the physical destruction of the drive. If studios want to avoid this situation, they should encrypt, even if it is a relatively long open key window, at least it would have a self destruct date associated with it.

[Marlon Martins]

we received the movie and the guy said "this movie does not need a key".

im like, m what? they send a unencripted movie? it will be online to download tomorrow.

2 days later,, DCP rip on "some sites". i got to see, and the forced subtitles where in portuguese, so it was a brazilian version who where leaked

[Leo Enticknap]

They likely figured that the movie has already leaked, and that therefore the expense of KDM management for this title would be money wasted. Someone who is motivated to see it in a theater is not the type of person who would see illegally streamed (or otherwise sold) movies, anyways.