Who filed the Netflix $105 million lawsuit?

The Netflix $105 million lawsuit was filed by Simon Afram and Op-Fortitude Ltd. against Netflix, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The controlling case record is No. 2:26-cv-08384, filed July 29, 2026; the public docket entry also records a $405 filing fee and Receipt No. CCACDC-42919203.[1] Bloomberg Law and Reuters both identify the dispute as the lawsuit over the missing unreleased Nicolas Cage film “Fortitude,” but the answer to who filed it starts with the docket caption and complaint parties, not the celebrity shorthand.[2][3]

• Risk Digest note: this is a litigation-record summary, not legal advice.
• Last verified: July 31, 2026, UTC.
• Current posture: complaint-only based on the public materials identified here; no adjudication, answer, or later public docket event is reflected in the cited public sources as of this verification date.
• Source hierarchy used here: docket and complaint first, reported context second. This record belongs in the Risk Digest.

What the docket fixes

The filing date to use is July 29, 2026. If a secondary write-up describes the lawsuit by a weekday or compresses the filer into “a producer,” that phrasing should not displace the docket record. The docket metadata gives the federal court, the case number, the date, the fee, the receipt number, and the defendant’s corporate description.[1]

The caption also matters because the public shorthand can make the plaintiff identity look looser than it is. Reuters’ headline refers to a producer suing Netflix, while the reported party record identifies Simon Afram together with Op-Fortitude Ltd.; Bloomberg Law likewise frames the dispute around the missing Nicolas Cage film, but the legal lookup question is answered by the named plaintiffs and docket number.[2][3]

That distinction is not pedantry. It changes how the case is cited in a memo, how conflicts are checked, and how a lawyer answers the threshold question of whether Netflix is being sued by an individual, a company, or both.

What the complaint alleges about the missing “Fortitude” master

The entertainment context is narrow but necessary: the dispute concerns “Fortitude,” described in the reporting as an unreleased World War II spy thriller starring Nicolas Cage.[3] The complaint’s theory is not that Netflix owned the film. It is that plaintiffs allegedly delivered an unencrypted master copy or DCP to Netflix for screening, Netflix allegedly had custody of it, and the copy was allegedly stolen from Netflix’s Los Angeles office.[4][5]

Those entries should not be blended into a single “Netflix lost the movie” fact. The court record, at this stage, proves that a complaint was filed. It does not prove that the DCP was delivered under the conditions alleged, that the copy was deleted or not deleted after a screening, that Netflix had notice on any particular day, or that the theft occurred in the precise way plaintiffs describe.

The pleaded claims and the money demand

The complaint pleads three civil claims: conversion, breach of bailment contract, and breach of implied contract.[3][4] In practical terms, the claims depend on plaintiffs’ custody theory: that Netflix allegedly accepted possession of valuable film material for a limited purpose and then allegedly failed to safeguard or return control over it.

The damages figure should be carried with the same caution. Plaintiffs demand at least $105,000,000, plus punitive damages, and request a jury trial.[3][4] Reports also describe plaintiffs as asserting more than $45 million in investment over seven years, but that investment figure is a plaintiff-side assertion, not a judicial valuation of the missing master or the film’s market value.[5]

Any larger “$165 million” or “extortion” framing belongs in the category of litigation characterization, not established loss. It may matter later if the parties brief damages, settlement conduct, or risk allocation, but it is not something the complaint-only docket has adjudicated.

Netflix’s response is also a position, not a court finding

Netflix’s reported response is that it does not own the rights to “Fortitude” and disputes bearing the risk of loss for a film allegedly delivered without proper industry-standard safeguards.[2][3] That position matters because it points to the likely defense terrain: rights ownership, custody terms, delivery protocols, encryption or security measures, and who contractually or practically assumed loss risk.

It still remains Netflix’s position. The current record described here does not contain a ruling accepting Netflix’s risk-of-loss argument, rejecting plaintiffs’ bailment theory, or valuing the alleged loss. The same discipline applied in other official-record-versus-reported-context reviews applies here: separate the event narrative from the record posture.

Status as of July 31, 2026

So the durable answer to “who filed the Netflix $105 million lawsuit” is Simon Afram and Op-Fortitude Ltd. The rest of the headline—the alleged theft, the custody failure, and the value assigned to the missing “Fortitude” master—remains litigation allegation until the court record develops.

References

1. Op-Fortitude Ltd., a United Kingdom company v. Netflix, Inc., a Delaware corporation, No. 2:26-cv-08384, public docket, PACER Monitor, July 29, 2026
2. Missing Nicolas Cage Film Spurs $105 Million Netflix Lawsuit, Bloomberg Law
3. Producer sues Netflix for $105 million over missing Nicolas Cage movie, Reuters, July 30, 2026
4. Op-Fortitude Complaint_Redacted.pdf, Deadline
5. Netflix Sued Over Missing Hard Drive Of World War II Movie, Deadline, July 2026