The LAPD is investigating the disappearance of a $45 million Nicolas Cage war film that vanished from Netflix's office at Sunset Bronson Studios in Hollywood, a case that has spiraled into a $105 million federal lawsuit and dueling accusations of theft and extortion.

Producer Simon Afram's law firm filed a police report at the Hollywood Community Police Station on July 15, alleging Netflix lost a hard drive containing a screening copy of "Fortitude," an unreleased WWII spy thriller seven years in the making. An LAPD spokesperson confirmed the department is investigating, the Los Angeles Times reported Aug. 21.

Netflix declined to comment on the police report.

How the drive disappeared

Netflix executives first expressed interest in buying "Fortitude" after receiving promotional materials in December 2025, according to the Hollywood Reporter. They requested a working cut in June 2026. On June 15, associate producer Daniel Haido hand-delivered an unencrypted Digital Cinema Package to Netflix's Sunset Bronson office for a screening the next day. He instructed staff, both verbally and in writing, to delete the files afterward and notify him when the drive was ready for pickup.

Netflix went silent. For more than a week, the production tried to arrange retrieval. Then on June 25, Netflix's Sean Berney emailed Haido with the subject line "Stolen DCP."

"Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week," Berney wrote. "We've been working through this with our security teams to no luck."

Berney offered to reimburse the cost of the drive or create a new digital cinema package. Afram said the damage ran far deeper.

The $105 million lawsuit

Afram and his production company, Op-Fortitude Ltd., sued Netflix on July 30 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking at least $105 million. The suit alleges Netflix left the unencrypted drive on an office desk without basic physical or digital security and refused to disclose whether it filed its own police report.

The complaint argues the theft destroyed the film's first-to-market exclusivity. Test screenings projected an 82% "top-two box" audience score, and the lawsuit estimates the movie would have generated at least $112.5 million in revenue, according to Fox Business. The production has paused sales and marketing despite interest from multiple distributors.

Netflix fires back

Netflix disputes liability, arguing the film was delivered without "proper industry-standard safeguards" such as encryption or a password-protected link. The streamer accused Afram's lawyers of "hostile attempts to extort money," saying the firm immediately demanded $165 million rather than negotiate in good faith.

Earlier in August, Afram added a defamation claim, calling Netflix's extortion allegation "entirely false."

Netflix said it has found no evidence "Fortitude" has leaked online and is monitoring piracy sites.

The film

"Fortitude," directed by Simon West ("Con Air," "Tomb Raider"), stars Cage as real-life spy Dusko Popov, the man who inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond. The cast includes Sir Ben Kingsley, Matthew Goode, Ed Skrein and Alice Eve. Afram, a Swiss producer and financier, invested more than $45 million of his own money and shot the film on 35-millimeter celluloid to evoke the era.

No hearing date has been set in the Netflix lawsuit. The film's worldwide rights remain available.