Audio Video News

The days of seeing a Redbox video vending machine in the vestibule of your local Walmart or supermarket may be coming to an end.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, the financially beleaguered parent company of Redbox, has filed for bankruptcy protection. One of the last straws leading to the filing was apparently the company’s inability to meet its payroll and pay its bills.

Redbox is in the hole with a number of retailers and movie studios, including Walmart, Walgreens, Warner Bros, Universal, and Sony, according to news reports. And it may be that Chicken Soup was doomed from the start when it took on a reported $325 million in debt to acquire Redbox in 2022.

For most of us, renting DVDs or Blu-ray Discs from Redbox is pure nostalgia even though the company still maintains a network of about 27,000 kiosks around the country, down from 36,000 when Chicken Soup acquired Redbox, according to the Associated Press. Overnight rentals cost between $2.25 and $2.50, the latter for a 4K Blu-ray Disc, offered in some, though not all, Redbox locations.

Chicken Soup for the Soul also operates ad-supported streaming and video on-demand offerings, including Redbox Live TV and Crackle.