Cinephile community Letterboxd is reportedly in advanced acquisition talks with the New York Times Company, which was previously said to be competing with Sony and A24 to buy the site.
That reporting comes courtesy of the Times itself, which reported on Thursday that paper’s company is mulling a bid that could cost up to $330 million. That’s approximately 22 times Letterboxd’s current annual revenue of $15 million, a very high valuation multiplier that’s more common in flashy tech deals. A final arrangement has not been reached, two sources told the paper, but another detail is that the Times has “discussed” leaving Letterboxd co-founders Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in charge of the site.
That last point would doubtless go some way towards assuaging community fears that a post-acquisition Letterboxd will promptly choose the enshittification route, where tech execs take an existing product with a userbase and try to nickel-and-dime it for maximum value. Sony and A24 had been curious choices as well, as they would put two massive film production studios in charge of what’s essentially a home for cinephiles and amateur critics, posing a potential conflict of interest.
The Times is one of the few remaining national newspapers that could be considered a business power player in media, and certainly the NYT Company is one of the only U.S. newspaper publishers spending hundreds of millions of dollars on acquisitions in recent years: sports site The Athletic, product review site Wirecutter, and the wildly popular Wordle puzzle game. It’s also expanded its own offerings beyond print format, such as spinning out its popular cooking section into subscription-based service with its own app.
Two sources who spoke with the Times seemed to indicate the NYT Company isn’t in a rush to do much but integrate Letterboxd into its ad network, with longer-term plans remaining unclear:
“Two people familiar with the company’s interest in the deal said the Times Company would integrate its advertising technology with Letterboxd’s systems. One of the people said Letterboxd would most likely continue operating as a stand-alone site for the foreseeable future.”
The NYT Company is also looking to grow from 13.8 million to 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027, and while Letterboxd doesn’t disclose how many users pay for its subscription tiers, Inc reported that its total user base has been quoted at up to 30 million. (Grain of salt.)
IndieWire reported that A24 “was also in late-stage talks” with similar promises of retaining the co-founders, but that offer apparently fell through. While IndieWire noted a Times acquisition might make Letterboxd “seem a little less cool,” it’s easy to see where the Times presents opportunities for crossover features, like Letterboxd/NYT subscription deals, modules in film sections, or inclusion with trivia apps.
The NYT Company didn’t return Gizmodo’s request for comment, but we’ll update this post if we hear back.
