{"id":2241845,"date":"2026-11-06T02:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T23:46:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-11-06T02:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T23:46:10","slug":"make-room-wordle-the-new-york-times-is-reportedly-close-to-purchasing-letterboxd-for-330-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2241845","title":{"rendered":"Make Room, Wordle: The New York Times Is Reportedly Close to Purchasing Letterboxd for $330 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/letterboxd-1200×675.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Cinephile community Letterboxd is reportedly in advanced acquisition talks with the New York Times Company, which was previously said to be competing with Sony and A24 to buy the site.<\/p>\n

That reporting comes courtesy of the Times itself, which reported on Thursday that paper\u2019s company is mulling a bid that could cost up to $330 million. That\u2019s approximately 22 times Letterboxd\u2019s current annual revenue of $15 million, a very high valuation multiplier that\u2019s more common in flashy tech deals. A final arrangement has not been reached, two sources told the paper, but another detail is that the Times has \u201cdiscussed\u201d leaving Letterboxd co-founders Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in charge of the site.<\/p>\n

That last point would doubtless go some way towards assuaging community fears that a post-acquisition Letterboxd will promptly choose the enshittification route, where tech execs take an existing product with a userbase and try to nickel-and-dime it for maximum value. Sony and A24 had been curious choices as well, as they would put two massive film production studios in charge of what\u2019s essentially a home for cinephiles and amateur critics, posing a potential conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

The Times is one of the few remaining national newspapers that could be considered a business power player in media, and certainly the NYT Company is one of the only U.S. newspaper publishers spending hundreds of millions of dollars on acquisitions in recent years: sports site The Athletic, product review site Wirecutter, and the wildly popular Wordle puzzle game. It\u2019s also expanded its own offerings beyond print format, such as spinning out its popular cooking section into subscription-based service with its own app.<\/p>\n

Two sources who spoke with the Times seemed to indicate the NYT Company isn\u2019t in a rush to do much but integrate Letterboxd into its ad network, with longer-term plans remaining unclear:<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo people familiar with the company\u2019s interest in the deal said the Times Company would integrate its advertising technology with Letterboxd\u2019s systems. One of the people said Letterboxd would most likely continue operating as a stand-alone site for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYT Company is also looking to grow from 13.8 million to 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027, and while Letterboxd doesn\u2019t disclose how many users pay for its subscription tiers, Inc reported that its total user base has been quoted at up to 30 million. (Grain of salt.)<\/p>\n

IndieWire reported that A24 \u201cwas also in late-stage talks\u201d with similar promises of retaining the co-founders, but that offer apparently fell through. While IndieWire noted a Times acquisition might make Letterboxd \u201cseem a little less cool,\u201d it\u2019s easy to see where the Times presents opportunities for crossover features, like Letterboxd\/NYT subscription deals, modules in film sections, or inclusion with trivia apps.<\/p>\n

The NYT Company didn\u2019t return Gizmodo\u2019s request for comment, but we\u2019ll update this post if we hear back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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Cinephile community Letterboxd is reportedly in advanced acquisition talks with the New York Times Company, which was previously said to be competing with Sony and A24 to buy the site.<\/p>\n

That reporting comes courtesy of the Times itself, which reported on Thursday that paper\u2019s company is mulling a bid that could cost up to $330 million. That\u2019s approximately 22 times Letterboxd\u2019s current annual revenue of $15 million, a very high valuation multiplier that\u2019s more common in flashy tech deals. A final arrangement has not been reached, two sources told the paper, but another detail is that the Times has \u201cdiscussed\u201d leaving Letterboxd co-founders Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in charge of the site.<\/p>\n

That last point would doubtless go some way towards assuaging community fears that a post-acquisition Letterboxd will promptly choose the enshittification route, where tech execs take an existing product with a userbase and try to nickel-and-dime it for maximum value. Sony and A24 had been curious choices as well, as they would put two massive film production studios in charge of what\u2019s essentially a home for cinephiles and amateur critics, posing a potential conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

The Times is one of the few remaining national newspapers that could be considered a business power player in media, and certainly the NYT Company is one of the only U.S. newspaper publishers spending hundreds of millions of dollars on acquisitions in recent years: sports site The Athletic, product review site Wirecutter, and the wildly popular Wordle puzzle game. It\u2019s also expanded its own offerings beyond print format, such as spinning out its popular cooking section into subscription-based service with its own app.<\/p>\n

Two sources who spoke with the Times seemed to indicate the NYT Company isn\u2019t in a rush to do much but integrate Letterboxd into its ad network, with longer-term plans remaining unclear:<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo people familiar with the company\u2019s interest in the deal said the Times Company would integrate its advertising technology with Letterboxd\u2019s systems. One of the people said Letterboxd would most likely continue operating as a stand-alone site for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYT Company is also looking to grow from 13.8 million to 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027, and while Letterboxd doesn\u2019t disclose how many users pay for its subscription tiers, Inc reported that its total user base has been quoted at up to 30 million. (Grain of salt.)<\/p>\n

IndieWire reported that A24 \u201cwas also in late-stage talks\u201d with similar promises of retaining the co-founders, but that offer apparently fell through. While IndieWire noted a Times acquisition might make Letterboxd \u201cseem a little less cool,\u201d it\u2019s easy to see where the Times presents opportunities for crossover features, like Letterboxd\/NYT subscription deals, modules in film sections, or inclusion with trivia apps.<\/p>\n

The NYT Company didn\u2019t return Gizmodo\u2019s request for comment, but we\u2019ll update this post if we hear back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/letterboxd-1200×675.jpg”] Cinephile community Letterboxd is reportedly in advanced acquisition talks with the New York Times Company, which was previously said to be competing with Sony and A24 to buy the site. That reporting comes courtesy of the Times itself, which reported on Thursday that paper\u2019s company is mulling a bid that could cost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2241845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2241845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2241845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2241845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2241845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}