Filmmakers around town have been alarmed after the heist of the unreleased Nicolas Cage film, “Fortitude,” from Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters, Page Six Hollywood hears.
Page Six Hollywood was first to tell you last week that writer-producer Simon Afram filed a bombshell breach-of-contract lawsuit against Netflix — claiming the studio “recklessly, carelessly, and negligently [failed] to protect the confidentiality and security” of a master copy of the film “Fortitude” — which was stolen from Netflix’s offices when some hard drives were swiped, the court papers allege.
The chain of events claimed in the lawsuit has left filmmakers around town feeling rattled.
One indie director was aghast at Netflix’s alleged sloppiness and subsequent response.
“I think it’s such a suspicious situation. DCPs are how films circulate. And for Netflix to claim [in an email that] it was stolen and they don’t know how, or by whom, and there’s nothing they can do about it is legitimately scary,” the director notes. “I feel for [the ‘Fortitude’ filmmakers]. This could tank a big sale for them.”
Another filmmaker found the entire scenario to be alarming. “
It’s incomprehensible that the security at this $1 trillion freaking company would be anything less than bulletproof,” the filmmaker notes. “If there’s a theft of a $45 million movie inside your company, the first thing you do is you call in the FBI piracy unit. What a red flag this is to every person in the film community.”
A Netflix source insists that as soon as its team was made aware the DCP was missing, it notified appropriate parties, including its internal security team and the “Fortitude” team.
On June 15, “Fortitude” associate producer Daniel Haido hand-delivered an unencrypted digital cinema package (DCP) of the Simon West-directed World War II thriller 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, court docs allege.
Within 24 hours, Netflix executives screened the film. But on June 25, a Netflix exec sent an email to two members of the “Fortitude” film team. (The full email is contained as an exhibit in the lawsuit, filed in California’s Central District.)
“This is a first for us. Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week,” the staffer wrote, according to the filing. “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.”
A Netflix source previously insisted to us that the other drives were empty — and that no additional materials were lost.
According to the lawsuit, Haido had given Netflix explicit instructions both verbally and in writing that, “the files be deleted after the screening.”
The lawsuit claims that Netflix also rebuffed the filmmakers’ request that the studio involve the Los Angeles Police Department. For its part, Netflix says it “disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss.”
The streamer previously told us in a statement: “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. 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.”
But Afram then added a defamation claim to his original bombshell suit in an amended complaint this week, stating: “Netflix’s statement that ‘the law firm representing Simon Afram’ made ‘hostile attempts to extort money from Netflix over this situation — including immediately demanding $165 million for the film’ is not loose, figurative, or hyperbolic. Extortion (and attempted extortion) is a crime with a legal definition.”
Neither Afram’s lawyers or Netflix has commented further.
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