Netflix, Sony, Paramount and more are said to be interested in taking a stake in Letterboxd, with a $250m valuation suggested. To badly paraphrase my colleague, Ryan: in the end, everything nice will be owned by a billion dollar corporation and/or a billionaire. The catalyst for the comment last week was the news that the ... Letterboxd | Big companies line up as potential sale mooted
Netflix, Sony, Paramount and more are said to be interested in taking a stake in Letterboxd, with a $250m valuation suggested.
To badly paraphrase my colleague, Ryan: in the end, everything nice will be owned by a billion dollar corporation and/or a billionaire. The catalyst for the comment last week was the news that the much-loved movie service Letterboxd was going up for sale, with its owners after a fresh majority stakeholder.
One of Amazon’s savviest purchases back in the day was when it got IMDB onto its asset register for effectively a song (and it also owns the popular BoxOfficeMojo service as well). As such, with Letterboxd being a magnet for movie nerds, lots of big organisations are circling the platform. An asking price of around $250m is small change to the many companies involved.
At the end of last week, the news broke that Netflix was interested in purchasing the service, but it’s since been joined by a whole bunch of other runners and riders. Along with private equity companies, names such as Sony Pictures, Paramount and Versant are said to be in the running.
It’s unclear yet which is likely to be the favourite, though. Early meetings, per Deadline, are said to have taken place, but this isn’t the kind of price tag where a bidding war will deter too many people. As a place where cinephiles gather online, obviously with the exception of this very website (cough), it’s hard to think of too many other such opportunities coming up.
Early reports suggest that the plan is to find a partner/investor who wouldn’t be looking for wholesale changes at the Auckland-based firm. Founders Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow remain involved and may well still be part of the organisation going forward. Letterboxd was already picked up by a company called Tiny in 2023, but it kept things very much in place.
What the future would hold if, say, a Netflix got involved remains unclear. But with no obvious frontrunner just yet, there’s a degree of wait and see here still. More as we hear it.
