Despite numerous instances of damage control, the controversy around MUBI’s $100 million investment from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital for months refused to go away, and it derailed what could’ve been a year of increased growth for the arthouse streamer.
A new report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday detailed just how severe MUBI‘s losses were throughout 2025, with CEO Efe Cakarel speaking to the paper about what amounted to the streamer ending the year with roughly 200,000 fewer subscribers, down to as low as 1.2 million subscription subs, than it had prior to securing the investment from Sequoia and after it had earned its first Best Picture nomination for “The Substance.”
WSJ also reported that in addition to the subscriber losses, MUBI lost $7.3 million on revenue of $200 million, and it offered three months of salaries to a dozen of its 400 employees who chose to leave over the controversy before laying off a handful more staffers. MUBI had a goal in 2025 of reaching 2 million subscribers, which would’ve required adding 600,000 subs. Following the box office bomb of “Die, My Love,” which grossed only $12 million after MUBI acquired it for $24 million out of Cannes, MUBI had negative cash flow of $65 million in Q4 2025, WSJ reported. However, it had a strong first quarter of 2026 thanks to being the international distributor for four of the five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature Film and is now up to a record 1.7 million subscribers.
“Losing subscribers and growth slowing down — it was all very real,” Cakarel told WSJ while adding that working with Sequoia was necessary “to keep backing ambitious cinema.”
The trouble for MUBI began last summer when an Instagram post called out MUBI for its investment from Sequoia, saying that Sequoia had also invested in an Israeli military start up called Kela. The post suggested that MUBI was complicit in a genocide of Palestinian people, and as IndieWire originally reported, half of MUBI’s staffers signed an open letter demanding MUBI return its investment and distance itself from Sequoia.
After an initial statement that the staffers saw as dismissive of the concerns, MUBI denied such involvement and said that Sequoia was only a minority investor, it did not have oversight over editorial or financial decisions, and it agreed to launch an Ethical Funding and Investment Policy to govern future investments and partners the streamer worked with. The controversy persisted, and the LA Festival of Movies dropped MUBI as a presenting sponsor, a planned MUBI Fest in Mexico City was scrapped, a group of filmmakers signed an open letter urging MUBI to drop its ties to Sequoia, and the filmmakers of the Oscar-winning “No Other Land” even came out and said it turned down a distribution offer from MUBI, going without distribution entirely, over the Israeli concerns.
Earlier this week, MUBI announced another partnership with European content investment fund manager IPR.VC to fund European films, and the streamer is partnering on six different films at Cannes next month, including Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland,” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.”
Jennifer Lawrence And Josh Hutcherson Are Returning To The Hunger Games Universe
The rumors are true, and months of denials have officially aged like milk. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are reportedly returning to the world of Panem, reprising their iconic roles as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark in Lionsgate’s highly anticipated prequel, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.
At first, the idea seemed impossible. The new film takes place decades before Katniss ever volunteered for the Hunger Games, making the return of Lawrence and Hutcherson appear unlikely. However, the filmmakers have reportedly found a clever way to bring the beloved characters back without disrupting the timeline of the original trilogy.
The key is a framing device reportedly taken from Suzanne Collins’ latest novel. The story is expected to feature an older Katniss and Peeta spending time with Haymitch Abernathy as he tells them about the horrifying experience he endured during his own Hunger Games. This approach gives fans an opportunity to see the original characters again while allowing the prequel to remain focused on Haymitch’s story.
The revelation is especially amusing considering Josh Hutcherson’s recent comments about the project. For months, the actor insisted that he knew nothing about the upcoming film and emphasized how much he still loved the franchise. In Hollywood, however, such denials can often mean that a carefully worded confidentiality agreement is keeping the truth under wraps. Fans now have plenty of reason to laugh at those earlier statements.
Sunrise on the Reaping centers on the 50th Hunger Games, known as the Second Quarter Quell. This particular Games was designed to be especially brutal, with twice the usual number of tributes being sent into the arena. The story follows a young Haymitch as he struggles to survive one of the most devastating and psychologically intense Games in Panem’s history.
Bringing Katniss and Peeta into the story through a framing sequence could create an emotional connection between Haymitch’s past and the characters fans have followed since the beginning of the franchise. It also gives Lawrence and Hutcherson a chance to return without changing the events established in the original films.
Fans have already taken to social media to celebrate the reported reunion, with many joking about how successfully the actors managed to keep the secret. The combination of familiar stars, Suzanne Collins’ source material, and director Francis Lawrence returning has created enormous anticipation.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is scheduled to arrive in theaters on November 20, 2026. Whether Katniss and Peeta appear only briefly or play a more meaningful role remains unclear, but their return could make this new chapter one of the franchise’s biggest cinematic events yet.
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