Letterboxd, the app anywhere movie Twitter went to live, could shortly have a new owner. According to a new report, The New York Times, A24, and Sony Pictures are among the suitors who've expressed involvement in purchasing the site.
The asking price? More than $300M, per the Times' sources. That's approximately 20 times the about $15M Letterboxd is projected to acquire this year. Not bad for a location started in 2011 by two New Zealand designers, Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, who were annoyed that movie lovers had nowhere decent to collect online.
The growth is honestly staggering. The location now has 30 myriad users, up from 1.8 myriad in 2020. Most group use it for free, but there are paid Pro ($19/year) and Patron ($49/year) tiers, affirmative ad revenue. Media expert Ken Doctor summed up the petition to the Times: an busy spectators that pays and that advertisers desire to attain is "the aureate norm of the internet."
My two cents: A24 purchasing Letterboxd would be the most on-brand acquisition imaginable, but additionally the messiest. Its movies get rated on the phase all sole day, and the conflict-of-interest questions compose themselves. Same goes for Sony. The Times makes the most awareness on paper, but it has its own critics.
