The case of the missing Nicolas Cage movie just took another twist.
The writer, producer and financier of the unreleased $45 million film that was stolen from Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters in June is now suing the streaming giant for defamation, too.
Writer-producer Simon Afram filed an amended complaint in federal court on Tuesday, citing a statement made to the press by Netflix that accused the law firms representing the Swiss billionaire of extortion.
Page Six Hollywood was first to tell you last week that Afram filed a bombshell breach-of-contract lawsuit against Netflix, claiming that 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 its offices when some hard drives were swiped, court papers allege.
At the time, Netflix provided us with a lengthy statement that included the following sentence: “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.”
Neither Afram nor Netflix appear to disagree on the broad strokes of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the missing film, which has alarmed filmmakers around town.
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 reveal.
Within 24 hours, Netflix executives screened the film.
But on June 25, a Netflix executive sent a shocking 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 executive 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.”
“For screening purposes, the files on the DCP containing the Film would be copied or ingested into the projector used to screen the Film. Thus, Mr. Haido was requesting that Netflix delete the files from its projector. Mr. Haido also asked to be notified ‘as soon as’ the drive was ready for pickup,” the lawsuit states. Haido made repeated attempts to schedule a pickup and was allegedly ignored or stalled until the June 25 email acknowledging a theft occurred.
It is unclear what transpired behind the scenes over the next five weeks, but on July 30, Afram sued Netflix for $105 million.
Afram’s suit claims that Netflix refused to confirm whether or not it had filed a police report, despite the fact that an executive acknowledged in writing that a theft had occurred.
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.”
But it was a subsequent sentence in the Netflix statement that included the word “extort” that prompted today’s amended complaint.
“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,” the amended complaint states.
“Netflix is a very large, publicly traded company and is very sophisticated. It has a sizeable in-house legal department, as well as outside counsel. It has teams of professionals to handle its media and public relations. Netflix’s statement was not a spontaneous, knee-jerk reaction. It was a planned, crafted, and very intentional statement made by a sophisticated party that knowingly accused Mr. Afram and his law firm very publicly of committing the serious crime of attempted extortion.”
Afram is not asking for additional damages at this time, and hopes that an overall sum will be determined at trial, the papers state.
Netflix has painted the litigation as a money grab. But Afram is known in film finance circles to be a billionaire, and “Fortitude” represented a seven-year passion project for him.
The film marks a reteaming between Cage and West, who previously collaborated on the box-office hit “Con Air.” The film also stars Ben Kingsley and Ron Perlman and its supporting cast includes Matthew Goode, Michael Sheen, Art Malik, Jordi Mollà and Lukas Haas, as well as Ed Skrein, Alice Eve, Paul Anderson and Emilio Sakraya.
Afram’s legal team is citing the Serenity Investments v. Sun Hung Kai Strategic Capital case, which also occurred in Central California District, to demonstrate that strict liability should apply here. Afram and his company Op-Fortitude are being repped by attorneys Caroline Mankey and Christopher McAndrew at Akerman and Neville Johnson, and Hyura Choi at Johnson and Johnson.
Afram’s attorneys declined comment. We’ve reached out to Netflix for comment.
