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Business·1 min read

New York Times in Talks to Buy Letterboxd for About $330 Million

The New York Times Company has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire the film-focused social network Letterboxd for roughly $330 million, according to people familiar with the talks.

A smartphone showing a film-logging app next to a newspaper, illustrating a media company's talks to buy a movie social network.
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The New York Times Company is in talks to acquire Letterboxd, the social network for movie fans, for roughly $330 million. According to two people familiar with the discussions, the parties have moved into an exclusive negotiation phase. No deal has been reached, and the company declined to comment on the matter.

What Letterboxd offers

Founded in 2011 by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, Letterboxd lets users log the films they have watched, rate them, write reviews and share lists. Core features are free, while advanced options sit behind a paid subscription. The platform had 3 million users in January 2021 and reached 28 million in April. More than half of its users are under 35.

Price and plans

Other suitors reportedly included Sony and A24. A24 is said to have withdrawn after the expected price climbed. The $330 million figure equals about 22 times Letterboxd's projected 2026 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $15 million.

Under the discussed terms, Buchanan and von Randow would keep running Letterboxd and report to a New York Times Company executive. The service is expected to continue operating on its own site, while the company's advertising technology would be integrated into Letterboxd's systems.

Part of a wider strategy

The New York Times Company has already broadened its digital portfolio beyond news by buying The Athletic for sports coverage, Wirecutter for product reviews and the word game Wordle. In the third quarter it added 420,000 digital subscribers, bringing total paid subscriptions to 13.8 million.

If the deal closes, a cinema-focused social network with a young, fast-growing audience would join that lineup, giving the publisher a new community-driven product alongside its subscription businesses.

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Tags:letterboxdnew york timesacquisitionsocial networkfilm

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