Bankrupt - Redbox

From its origins as a convenience store kiosk created by the McDonald's corporation, Redbox grew to become a massive DVD rental brand with tens of thousands of locations across America. However in 2024, the company came crashing down and will soon be lost to time forever. Join me today to find out what happened to this beloved brand.

Travel Channel - @BrightSunTravels

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Bright Sun Films 2024

Presented in 4K

[chazhoosier]

"And then it was sold to a private equity firm..."

Every blessed episode.

[TJACS]

Last year, my modem router went out at my house. For several days, while we waited for the new one to arrive, my family would rent 2-3 DVDs a day to watch from Redbox. It was a lot of fun and almost nostalgic for me as I grew up going to rental stores with my mom.

RIP Redbox.

[DJdoppIer]

There was a Redbox at the CVS that I rented from occasionally. Around the beginning of July I went to get some prescriptions filled and saw a RedBox employee emptying out the machine. I asked him if they were getting rid of the machines, and he said probably. I then asked what they were going to do with the DVDs, and he said he wasn't sure, but that everything was a mess right now and he was probably going to be laid off within the month. He then asked if I wanted a few DVDs, and now I am now the proud owner of about a dozen of them. Unfortunately he couldn't let me keep the RedBox DVD containers, but still pretty cool. A week later the machine was gone.

[jasonwomack]

Red Box didn't live long in the grand scheme of things. But they did one hell of a job streamlining and extending the rental industry's life, for a couple decades.

[SueBobChicVid]

I had no idea it was birthed by McDonalds.

[obrother]

There was no better feeling than going to the grocery store to get ingredients for dinner with my dad and him telling me and my siblings that we could grab a redbox while he shopped. Then wed go home, eat, and watch a movie.

Glory days.

[Ari.Atland]

The red kiosks will always be a part of my childhood. Whenever a new film came out & my family could barely afford tickets to the theater, we were always told "wait for it to be on redbox." And we would wait for it to be available on redbox, late nights at the 24/7 walmarts, we'd rent a film & watch the movie during a late dinner when my father came back from work.

Distant times.

[TheDigileet]

Redbox was a game-changer on road trips. The family car I grew up with was a minivan with a DVD player, so being able to rent a movie, return it 150 miles away, and immediately get another one for the next 150 miles was pretty nice.

[frankcastle]

To be honest I'm surprised it lasted this long.

[John.]

End of an Era. Blockbuster destroyed small video stores. Redbox ended Blockbuster. Streaming ended Redbox. We still end up paying over and over and over for the same content that we bought years ago.

[FluffyNinjaUnicornGaming]

One time, my grandma was staying at my place with me and needed to return a Redbox DVD. I told her we could return it at the local grocery store. When we got there, we found out it was actually a red "cineflix" box. We had to go all the way to the next town to return it. In my defense, it was a "red box" 😂

[dishsoap]

RIP Redbox. The streamers finally got you. I’ll still keep supporting physical media.
The kiosk at the Walgreens by my house is still there. Sad to see her sitting there alone.

[AdomasAspen]

I used to refill Redbox machines and you forgot one aspect that they don’t want to mention but definitely played a role into its downfall: when they rented games, some people would put a photo copy of the disc cover in the Redbox case and steal the games. That also led to them not renting them in 2019

[hollybarker]

As a former employee who'd been with the company for over 10 years, while CSSE and Bill Ruhana did everything they could to destroy us, I have to be honest and say that the downward spiral began way before. As Bryone Sharp said, there was kind of this relaxed atmosphere within the company. It was a wonderful company to work for, but unfortunately that relaxed atmosphere extended into inappropriate spending, not thinking far enough ahead in the future and poor marketing decisions early on.

[fantahannah]

I had thought about redbox at one point cuz I surley thought they died. I can't believe they triumphed for this long; I really took them for granted in these later years. Sad to see a company who operates so strong independently be part of a wreckless, sinking parent company who never cared

[kaniahankston]

Redbox really helped in my childhood because even though we couldn’t always go to the movies because of the expense, Redbox would have it shortly after. We were always able to rent movies and games to try for an affordable price. With how streaming is only getting more expensive nowadays it will be definitely missed.

[SteelHatKing]

Growing up during the recession redbox was how my family went to the movies essentially it was a family movie night thing, I loved redbox sad to see them go like this

[bobbyislegend]

I will genuinely miss Redbox. I think I'm the only person I knew who still used them up until they stopped stocking new content. But as a physical media collector, I was able to buy so many movies to own from Redbox, typically for $4-6 a piece. The Redbox cases don't look the cleanest next to regular Blu Ray/4K packaging, but I was getting releases 1-2 months after they dropped for way cheaper than they'd even be on Prime Day/Black Friday/etc so I wasn't complaining. I'm not sure many even knew there was a "Buy" option from Redbox. They offered it when they carried video games too and I got Dark Souls 3, Minecraft, Mega Man 11, and more for like $5 a pop. Good times. It's a shame hearing about Redbox's decline, but I'm glad they existed when they did.

[jabaricatledge]

I've been with Redbox over 14 years and I'm going to thank you for telling that story

[nicalos]

I was born in early 07, and after the 08 recession my family had lost most of our money. So we couldn’t go do whatever we wanted all that often, but my grandma still wanted me to be happy. So every Saturday night we would go to McDonald’s, and then CVS to buy candy and rent a movie. We did this for several years as my siblings came along and I loved it. Thanks for the memories🙏🏻