The Letterboxd Story: A Site for Film Lovers and Filmmakers Lending a Hand to Independent Distributors – Special Preview

The New Zealand-based platform, where fans track, discuss and share lists of old and new films, is an increasingly influential marketing tool for niche films with limited budgets and hard-to-reach audiences.

Founded by Auckland tech entrepreneurs Matthew Buchanan and Carl von Randow over 10 years ago as a passion project, Letterboxd recently surpassed 6.5 million members, 40-50% in North America, followed by the UK, the Europe and the markets located between Brazil and India. , Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. It has 4.4 million monthly visitors and 800 million monthly page views.

Since its launch, users have registered as many as 1 billion movies watched, 300 million movies on the watchlist, and posted 76.8 million reviews. The average monthly time per visitor on the web and on the application is about 40 minutes.

Letterboxd has been profitable since 2019, which is “a source of immense pride,” Buchanan told Deadline. The founders soon turned down venture capital support, saying they could grow the service at a pace they felt comfortable with. It has nine full-time employees.

Users literally list all the movies they have ever seen and all the movies they want to watch. They created a list of 8.6 million goals ranging from broad to micro: “time travel movies where the main character has to be killed or brought back to the start, which prevents the movie from shooting.” Or, “Whenever Hollywood made a film adaptation of a beloved series of books for young adults, except for the first installment, the film was received so badly that they refused to adapt the rest of the books, despite the moments. premonitory and full of suspense in the first film. “

David Larkin, head of business and strategy for the New York-based company, says all of this makes the platform an effective place for targeted advertising.

“If you want to find people to watch drive my car You don’t really care if they’re 20 or 60, “although Letterboxd is aimed at young people.” The common theme is that they want to see a movie, “or they like movies like that.” Let’s start with the people in the bank.

“Most importantly, we know that people have tight budgets and there aren’t many places where they can productively put their tight budgets.”

The platform’s first partnership was with Neon for a black and white theatrical release campaign. a parasite in 2020. Larkin said he has since worked on around 100 campaigns with independent distributors IFC Films (observer, official competition, hatching), Kino Lorber (The frost of Neptune, the spy’s wife) Janus Films / Sideshow (drive my car), music box movie (Medusa, strawberry palace), utopia (We will all go to the Universal Exposition, Little ShivaA rad restoration and recently, a sharp stick).

“We are big fans. I first discovered them as a movie fan, as a platform for writing films, “said Kyle Greenburgh, director of marketing and distribution at Utopia. The commitment can be very powerful.”

Letterboxd can target customers in New York and Los Angeles, helping to distribute a film in 25 markets or across the country, Larkin said. Invite partners to create a list of movies that have a similar “vibe or energy” to the release and target those pages. Send direct and targeted marketing emails and promote campaigns on your social networks.

The service, which offers premium subscribers, notifies you when the movies on its list are available to stream and where. and also works to provide theatrical performances. “Now that more movies are back in theaters,” Buchanan said, “we’re really starting to see the fruits of the relationships we’ve built over the past two and a half years.”

Extraordinary opening this weekend:

A24 presents Halina Rein’s horror comedy bodies bodies bodies across six screens (before hitting over 1,000 next weekend). With Amanda Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Mihala Herold, Chase Sue Wonders, Rachel Sennot, Lee Pace and Pete Davidson.

When a group of wealthy 20-somethings throw a frantic party in a remote family mansion, the game goes horribly wrong between backstabbing fake friends. Preview at SXSW, review of the deadline here.

Presented by Magnolia Films i love my dad, winner of the SXSW 2022 Grand Jury Prize for narrative feature film, on 115 screens. Written and directed by James Morosin. Starring: Morosini, Patton Oswalt, Claudia Sulewski, Lil Rel Hoyer, Rachel Drach, Amy Landecker and Ricky Velez. August 12 on request.

The film follows Chuck (Oswalt), a hopelessly separated father who desperately wants to bond with his troubled son, Franklin (Morossin). Blocked from social media and worried about the life of her son Chuck myselfPlay online waitress and start paying in. But things start to go wrong when Franklin wants to meet her. myselfn people. Review of terms.

Vertical Entertainment introduces you collision 102 in the theater. Directed by Mukunda Michael Deville. During a fateful night in a Los Angeles restaurant. Hunter (Ryan Phillippe) finds himself on an awkward blind date with the lovely Tamira (Kat Graham), while a waiter (Dylan Fleshner) and his girlfriend (Aisha Dee) hide a stash of cocaine for a nice payday. . , while Peter is away. (Jim Gaffigan) sits in his car and watches his wife (Drea De Matteo) cheat on him with a restaurant manager (David Cade). Although they are all strangers, their stories intertwine as they race towards an explosive ending. Broadcast August 12.

Presentations of original Disney documentaries Missing in action In NY / LA / SF theaters until August 11th. All screenings are free and based on the order of arrival. It will have an official Oscar qualifying run before it premieres on Disney + on September 16. The selection and feature debut of director Isabel Castro at Sundance follows Doris Muñoz and Jack Haupt, two daughters of undocumented immigrants from Mexico pursuing careers in the music industry. Doris and Jax bond over the guilt of being the first undocumented family members to be born in the United States, the financial risks of pursuing their dreams, and the pressures for success, which could make a difference in hopes. of their future. to reunify the green cards. .

Janus Films presents the new 4K restoration by Krzysztof Kieslowski Three colors: white In Lincoln Center film, followed by restoration. Three colors: red on August 26 and Three colors: blue In September he also plays in art houses in ten cities of the country. Iconic in the 90s three colours trilogy, Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is a Polish immigrant living in France. An unfortunate hairdresser decides to leave Paris for his native Warsaw when his wife (Julie Delpy) sues him for divorce (their plea: their marriage was never consummated) and then blames him for arson after giving the flames their living room.