A U.K.-based production company and a filmmaker are suing Netflix for $105 million, according to CBS News, alleging the streaming company lost a drive containing a copy of an unreleased spy movie.
The complaint, filed Wednesday in California district court, says associate producer Daniel Haido hand-delivered an unencrypted master copy of the film, titled Fortitude, to Netflix for a screening as a possible buyer. The suit alleges Haido told the employee to delete the files after the screening.
About a week later, Netflix allegedly emailed the filmmakers to say the drive had been stolen. In the email quoted in the suit, a Netflix executive wrote, “Someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week.”
The lawsuit says the film took more than seven years to make and cost $45 million. It stars Nicolas Cage as Dusko Popov, along with Sir Ben Kingsley and Ron Perlman, and tells the story of Operation Fortitude, a World War II deception mission meant to mislead the Nazis about the Allied invasion of Europe.
Netflix told CBS News that it disputes any claim it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without proper industry-standard safeguards. The company also said it does not own the rights to Fortitude but has taken extra steps to support the filmmaker and offered to monitor piracy sites for unauthorized distribution.
