There have been rumors for months that Letterboxd, the nice social media app and web site for film lovers, was being shopped to potential consumers. A brand new report claims that a number of main media corporations at the moment are within the operating.
That’s in line with a report in Puck that states that Letterboxd’s new company overlords may embrace Sony, Paramount Skydance, Reddit co-creator Alexis Ohanian, and even Netflix, the streaming big. Selection stated they reached out to Ohanian concerning the report and acquired this response: “Man I can’t sneeze with out somebody taking about it lol.”
Based in New Zealand by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in 2011, Letterboxd has turn out to be the go-to app for cinephiles. It permits customers to charge, log, rank, record, and overview all the pieces they watch, and to see what their associates (and each consumer who needs to maintain their exercise public) have been watching as properly. A Canadian firm known as Tiny bought a 60 % stake in Letterboxd in 2023.
The location grew in reputation throughout Covid, when individuals had nothing else to do however watch films and use the web. By 2026, it had grown to over 30 million members worldwide.
READ MORE: The ten Worst Motion pictures of the Final 10 Years, In response to Letterboxd
These 30 million members might be watching this transaction very intently. Will the final word purchaser of Letterboxd enable it to stay largely unchanged? Or will they try so as to add extra monetization? (Letterboxd subscribers can use the app free of charge, or pay a comparatively low annual worth for further options like the power to alter sure posters and pictures.)
Letterboxd just lately launched a “video retailer” to the app, permitting for on-line film leases of titles that hadn’t discovered distribution elsewhere. Will somebody attempt to flip it into extra of a full-fledged streaming service? Or, if it’s purchased by a streaming service, to combine its scores and neighborhood into their very own buyer base?
Inevitably, each cool factor the Web creates will get purchased by somebody ultimately. Often these cool issues stay largely freed from interference and comparatively priceless; Amazon has owned IMDb for many years, and the location continues to be helpful. However typically new house owners make very unappealing modifications. After Sony purchased the Alamo Drafthouse, for example, they instituted a wierd new coverage requiring prospects to order meals and drinks by means of their telephones — when the very foundation of the theater was the concept you weren’t allowed to make use of your cellphone there in any respect. I’m skeptical Alamo’s authentic possession would have ever even thought-about such a plan.
Mainly, time will inform. However as somebody who spends waaaaaay an excessive amount of time on Letterboxd, I’m a bit nervous.
The Greatest Letterboxd Critiques
We picked 25 of our favourite, funniest, wittiest opinions on the film app.
