Redbox

A dollar a night from a vending machine, until the lights went out mid-rental

Shut down
19902026

Redbox rented DVDs for a dollar a night from red vending machines outside supermarkets and drug stores. Born inside a McDonald's innovation project in 2002, it grew to kiosks at more than 34,000 locations and over half the US disc rental market. Its last owner went bankrupt in 2024 with the kiosks still full of discs, and a judge ordered liquidation that July.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2002
  2. 2002 Launch
    The first kiosks appear

    A McDonald's innovation project puts vending machines outside restaurants.

  3. 2004
  4. 2004 Feature
    DVDs for a dollar a night

    The format that defines the company.

  5. 2009
  6. February 2009 Acquisition
    Coinstar takes full ownership

    The kiosk network accelerates as Blockbuster collapses.

  7. 2012
  8. 2012 Peak
    34,000 locations

    More than half of the US disc rental market moves through the red boxes.

  9. 2013
  10. March 2013 Feature
    Redbox Instant launches

    A streaming joint venture with Verizon. It closes within nineteen months.

  11. 2022
  12. 11 August 2022 Acquisition
    Sold to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment

    A small media company borrows heavily to buy a declining business.

  13. 2024
  14. June 2024 Legal
    The parent files for Chapter 11

    Roughly a billion dollars of debt, employees unpaid.

  15. 10 July 2024 Shutdown
    Liquidation

    A judge converts the case to Chapter 7. Apps and kiosks go dark with discs still out.

The site through time

Browse redbox.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 2024 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

McDonald's Ventures 2002–2005 Founded Born inside the Project 361 innovation initiative in Chicago
Coinstar / Outerwall 2009–2016 Acquisition The kiosk company took full ownership and scaled it nationwide
Apollo Global Management 2016–2021 Acquisition Took Outerwall private and split it; Redbox later went public via SPAC
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment 2022–2024 Acquisition Bought a declining business with borrowed money, went bankrupt within two years

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Redbox's owner since 2022, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024 carrying roughly a billion dollars of debt. On 10 July 2024 a judge converted the case to Chapter 7 liquidation, citing the way the business had been run, including unpaid employees. The kiosks, apps and streaming services went dark during the proceedings.

Our analysis: The kiosk was a brilliant answer to 2005: no store rent, no staff, a dollar a night while Blockbuster charged five. Streaming shrank the disc market year after year, and instead of winding down gracefully the business was sold to a small media company that borrowed heavily against a managed decline and could not service the debt when the decline ran faster than the plan.

History [edit]

Made by McDonald's

Redbox began in Chicago as part of "Project 361", a McDonald's initiative for finding businesses beyond hamburgers. The first machines, installed from 2002, were automated convenience kiosks; the idea that stuck was DVDs. Rentals cost one dollar a night from a bright red machine outside a supermarket, pharmacy or, at first, a McDonald's.

The economics were the point. A Blockbuster store carried rent, staff and late-fee resentment. A kiosk carried none of that, and it arrived just as Blockbuster began to stumble. Coinstar, the coin-counting machine company that had helped fund the rollout, took full ownership in 2009, and through the early 2010s Redbox operated kiosks at more than 34,000 locations and controlled over half of the American disc rental market. For millions of households, Friday night at Blockbuster quietly became thirty seconds at a red box.

Managed decline, mismanaged

Streaming did to Redbox what Redbox had done to the stores, only slower, because a dollar is hard to argue with. The company tried streaming itself twice: Redbox Instant, a joint venture with Verizon, lasted from 2013 to 2014, and a later on-demand store fared little better. Ownership passed to Apollo Global Management in 2016, and the company went public through a SPAC in 2021 just as the disc market entered free fall.

In August 2022 Redbox was bought by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, a small media company that took on enormous debt to do it. Two years later the parent filed for Chapter 11 with employees going unpaid and health cover lapsing. On 10 July 2024 the bankruptcy judge converted the case to Chapter 7 liquidation. There was no farewell notice: apps stopped working, kiosks stopped taking cards, and discs people had rented simply never came due.

Around 24,000 kiosks were still standing when the end came, and hauling them away became its own small industry, with retailers begging anyone to take the machines and hobbyists salvaging them for the discs inside.

The domain today

redbox.com stopped answering after the liquidation; the name servers behind the domain no longer respond. The red kiosks still standing outside shops are inventory nobody came back for.

Similar projects

AOL Dial-Up The modem noise stopped, AOL did not 1991–2025 MobileMe The Apple service Steve Jobs apologised for 2008–2012 CompuServe The internet before the internet 1979–2009 Blockbuster Turned down Netflix for $50 million, and one store survives 1985–2014 Pocket Eighteen years of saved-for-later, gone before you read it 2007–2025 OnLive Cloud gaming, a decade too early 2010–2015

Sources [edit]

  1. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment closes Redbox acquisition Variety 11 August 2022 [archived]
  2. How Redbox ended up in bankruptcy The Verge 5 July 2024 [archived]
  3. Redbox to shut down as bankruptcy converts to liquidation Variety 10 July 2024 [archived]

Last verified: 14 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).