I think this happened to many early movies. There are many lost films where we only have written descriptions and still images left. A whole system for film arc

I think this happened to many early movies. There are many lost films where we only have written descriptions and still images left. A whole system for film archiving was put in place to prevent this from happening as it was deemed too important to be left into hands of producers. I believe in order to put something out nowdays you are required to provide a copy to archive. Not sure if it is world wide requirement or local though.