The crimson kiosks read “the smarter way to watch and play.” The accuracy of that statement largely depended on how one defined “smart.”
Launched in the early 2000s, Redbox offered something of a hybrid: Blockbuster-style DVD and game rentals in a small stall that could sit in the corner of a gas station or fast-food joint. On another timeline, one where Netflix wasn’t offering to send you discs in the mail and streaming wasn’t looming on the horizon, it would’ve been a slick idea. On the timeline you and I currently live on, Redbox was all but doomed.
Which is to say, that doom prophecy has been fulfilled. On Wednesday, the judge handling bankruptcy proceedings for Redbox parent Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (yes, really) OK’d a motion to move the company’s bankruptcy from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, effectively calling for the company to liquidate. As a result, Redbox will reportedly shut down some 24,000 kiosks and its streaming service. Another physical-media business bites the dust.
Redbox’s kiosks were never the right idea at the right time. As AV Club noted this week, they began life “(we shit you not) as self-serve grocery vending machines owned and operated by McDonald’s,” and as they evolved they never found their audience. Netflix began sending DVDs directly to people’s homes in the late 1990s, and while Redbox provided a nice alternative for movie-watchers who didn’t want a subscription service, the market of people who cared enough about films to leave the house to get them but didn’t care enough to have Netflix proved not lucrative enough.
But the death of Redbox also indicates something else: another last belch in the death of physical media. Even as acolytes cling to vinyl and other bits of physical product, DVDs and Blu-rays disappear. Netflix shipped its last disc almost a year ago. Best Buy is planning to phase out the sales of physical discs. Often the only way to locate obscure titles, DVDs (and, in some cases, VHS) are becoming harder and harder to find. That’s why LA’s nonprofit video store Vidiots is working so hard to keep a library of them.
Not that Redbox was known for its extensive collection of rare indie films. But considering that streaming has something of a stranglehold on how most people access movies and TV shows, fans often end up unable to seek out obscure titles at any given time because they’re being incinerated somewhere in streaming-rights hell or being turned into a tax write-down. After years of imagining that streaming would put the riches of cinema at our fingertips, it’s become clear that as much as that’s possible, it involves subscribing to Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime Video, and probably the Criterion Channel too.
That’s not to say that unearthing unseen gems was easier before streaming, but for those who were hoping to free themselves and join the rentership society, getting rid of physical media has also meant accepting they may never see some beloved movies and shows again. Games, too, as anyone who ever watched a title disappear from Steam will tell you.
Did a Redbox full of discs solve any of these problems? No. But the company’s liquidation marks another chapter in the end of the physical media era. Maybe if we could figure out where all the DVDs in those 24,000 kiosks were going we could start to stockpile for our discless future.
Loose Threads
Julia Fox takes to TikTok to say she’s a lesbian. The actor and frequent social media presence made the kind-of announcement earlier this week in a video on the platform, adding “so sorry, boys.” When I say I really tried to make an “uncut ghaamssss” reference here, I really did.
Chappell Roan is going to be on Drew Afualo’s podcast. The pair teased the pop sensation’s appearance on The Comment Section in a TikTok on Wednesday. U mad your fave was on her show? Afualo has a big middle finger for you: “All the bad bitches love Drew.”
Ellen DeGeneres is over fame. As soon as she tapes her upcoming Netflix special, she’s “done.”
Here’s a great video explaining what’s going on with animators right now. They worked (from home) all through the Covid-19 pandemic and now things are tight. This clip from “cute lil’” studio Jellybox explains it all.
The biggest wedding in the world is set to take over your social media this weekend. All this week Anant Ambani—son of billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani—and pharmaceutical heiress Radhika Merchant have been celebrating their wedding, a months-long ordeal that took over the internet back in March when Rihanna performed at their pre-wedding party. No word yet on which mega-celebrity (or celebrities) will show up at this weekend’s deal-sealing festivities, but no doubt all of your social media feeds will tell you as soon as it happens.
