In Italy, those who love an established, historic site like davinotti.com probably know (if they aren’t already users) about the international Letterboxd: for those who don’t know, it is a cinema-themed social network and more recently also TV, where you create your own watchlists, publish reviews, sort out your thoughts about your passion and perhaps share them with someone else. A nice initiative born in 2011 and over fifteen years it has become increasingly important… and a few heavyweight players have taken notice.
Even A24 and The New York Times Are Interested in Letterboxd
Launched in 2011 by the New Zealanders Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow (who still hold a minority stake), Letterboxd has since 2023 been 60% owned by the Canadian Tiny, which is about to divest its substantial stake. As a testament to how much the platform has grown, boasting 30 million monthly active users, the deal with the potential buyer, supervised by the investment bank LionTree, values Letterboxd at $300 million, when in 2023 it stood at around $60 million—five times as much in four years. Who will make this outlay? Very big names like Netflix, Paramount and Sony have now been joined by those of A24 and The New York Times, in a race to secure what is described as a phenomenon by Alex Michael of LionTree, also a sign of greater attention to the in-theater experience, confirmed by a strong 2026 and, in particular, by an excellent summer: “With no marketing spend, the most interesting and relevant thing is that the largest user group falls in the 18-24 age bracket. If younger generations consume cinema and are engaged, perhaps this trend will not fade soon.” Neither the indie production company A24 nor The New York Times wanted to confirm their advance, but in the meantime it emerged that Letterboxd nearly entered the Versant Media family of Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango, because the company pulled back.
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