Redbox

Redbox was a DVD rental company that, at it's height, had around 45,000 kiosks nationwide. Businesses like CVS, Walmart, and 7-eleven all had their machines on their premises.

How this worked was pretty simple: Redbox would call up a retailer and say "Hey, let me plug this machine in out in your lobby. I will pay you rent and pay the electric bill, and then we collect the money from the DVD rental." Most retailers were fine with this, and thousands of Redbox kiosks were set up in the United States and Canada.

Then, on July 10, 2024, a bankruptcy judge ordered to convert Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment's Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation after accusing the company's previous CEO of misusing the business and failing to pay employees or support healthcare. With the Chapter 7 conversion, the company's assets will be liquidated, resulting in the shut down of its subsidiaries, including Redbox. In addition, over 1,000 employees will be laid off. The company's website and apps were taken down shortly after.

What Now?

Well, if you have 45,000 big hunks of metal all across the country and you are bankrupt, you pretty much do nothing. And that is where we are now in 2025. It will cost millions to haul all those machines away. The Walmart just down the road from me still has a Redbox machine sitting in its lobby, unplugged and collecting dust. An enterprising person might figure out what to do with them. Sell them as scrap, maybe?