Letterboxd, the social movie diary that turned logging what you watched into a way of life for film fans, could soon have a very big new owner.
According to reporting from The New York Times, A24, Sony Pictures Entertainment and The New York Times Company have all submitted expressions of interest in acquiring the platform, with bidding expected to value Letterboxd at more than $300 million.
That price is roughly 20 times the company’s projected 2026 earnings of about $15 million, a sign of just how valuable Letterboxd’s obsessive audience has become. The platform now counts more than 30 million members, a huge leap from fewer than two million users in 2020.
The sale process is being handled by investment bank LionTree. Canadian holding company Tiny, which acquired a 60 percent stake in Letterboxd in 2023 in a deal valuing it at $50 million to $60 million, has been exploring a sale of its controlling stake. Co-founders Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, two designers from New Zealand who started the site in 2011, retain the remaining 40 percent.
Earlier this summer the process was still in the exploratory stage, with Netflix, Paramount, private equity firms TPG and RedBird Capital, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian among those taking early meetings. The arrival of formal expressions of interest moves things into a much more concrete phase.
Each of the reported suitors would mean something different for the platform. A24 already shares much of Letterboxd’s young, online cinephile audience. Sony has been pushing beyond moviemaking into moviegoing culture, including its 2024 acquisition of Alamo Drafthouse. The New York Times Company has built a habit of folding beloved subscription communities like The Athletic and Wirecutter into its portfolio.
There is still no guarantee any of these companies ends up buying Letterboxd, and other parties from the earlier talks could remain in play. But what started as bankers testing the market has clearly turned into something real.