The Redbox service is no more. The rental company, which was founded by Gregg Kaplan in 2002, was known for its signature red kiosks found at various brick-and-mortar locations such as grocery stores and convenience stores, where customers could rent or purchase DVDs, Blu-Rays, and 4K UHD discs of current physical media titles as well as video games. Other Redbox ventures included a short-lived streaming service, which lasted for 19 months between 2013 and 2014, and an on-demand service that launched in 2017.

Per Variety, Redbox is shutting down. On Wednesday, the kiosk service's parent company Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment "converted its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case to a Chapter 7 liquidation proceeding." This proceeding includes the company's employees, which number more than 1,000, being laid off. The company originally acquired Redbox in 2020, taking on more than $350 million in debt in the process. At the time of writing, there is no word as to exactly when the kiosks will be shut down or removed from their various locations or if another company is looking to take them over.

Where Does Physical Media Go From Here?

Redbox Was One Of The Last Robust Renters of DVDs and Blu-Rays

Although Redbox’s profitability has been dwindling for years, it remained one of the last bastions of physical media rentals and purchases. As DVD and Blu-Ray sections shrink in brick-and-mortar stores, streaming and video-on-demand seem to be largely replacing physical media. In fact, there have been several notable titles in recent years that have not received major physical media releases, including the hit 2022 horror movie Barbarian and the Golden Globe-nominated thriller Saltburn. This shift has been reflected in many ways, including the lack of disc drives in many modern laptop computers.

However, this doesn't mean that physical media is vanishing entirely. Boutique companies, for instance, have continued to put out a robust selection of titles on physical media, with some even receiving 4K restorations and a thorough array of bonus features. One of the most prominent of these distribution labels is The Criterion Collection, which puts out "important classic and contemporary films," a selection that ranges widely from titles such as Citizen Kane and the first 15 Godzilla movies.

Other boutique physical media labels with their own niches include Shout! Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, Kino Lorber, and Arrow. All of them continuously put out arthouse, genre, and cult titles, many of which sell worldwide. However, the death of Redbox and other more widely recognized distribution methods could indicate that it will become increasingly difficult to find mainstream contemporary movies and television shows on physical media in the years to come.

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