BLOCKBUSTER SHOPPING BASKET video store handbasket vintage collectible 2002 RARE

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Seller: sidewaysstairsco ✉️ (1,180) 100%, Location: Santa Ana, California, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 196213104743 BLOCKBUSTER SHOPPING BASKET video store handbasket vintage collectible 2002 RARE. Check out our store for more great vintage, used, and new items! FOR SALE: An official and extremely rare piece of video rental store equipment 2002 BLOCKBUSTER RETAIL STORE HANDBASKET DETAILS: Make it a Blockbuster night! Attention all video rental enthusiasts and nostalgia seekers! Are you ready for a blast from the past? We present to you an ultra-rare 2002 Blockbuster retail shopping basket. This vintage gem is a true testament to the glorious era of video rentals and will surely transport you back to the days of browsing through aisles of VHS tapes, DVDs, and video games. This Blockbuster shopping basket is an undeniable piece of video rental history, featuring the iconic and unmistakable bold colors that defined an era. The vibrant yellow basket paired with the striking blue handles will instantly remind you of those countless trips to your local Blockbuster store, where movie and video game magic awaited in every exciting row of tangible choices. The shorter sides bear a sticker adorned with the classic blue torn ticket stub Blockbuster logo on a vibrant yellow background. This emblematic design will instantly transport you to a time when Blockbuster was the reigning champion of the movie rental world. The large side stickers proudly proclaim, "Rent by the WEEK-LOAD", "Now keep your rentals for a full week." Oh, the thrill of knowing you had a whole week with your favorite movies! With your media collection and this Blockbuster handbasket you can relive the excitement of selecting a stack of films and/or video games and eagerly anticipating the marathon of fun that awaits. Just imagine the countless movies, from Hollywood blockbusters to hidden gems, that were once cradled in the comforting embrace of this very basket. As you hold it in your hands, you'll feel an unparalleled connection to the heyday of video rentals. Comprised of sturdy plastic, this basket is not only a delightful collector's item but also a practical addition to your home. Whether you choose to showcase and use it in your personal video store, display it in your home, or employ it daily because it's simply useful, this basket will surely become an eye-catching conversation starter. An absolute must-have for the Blockbuster fanatic! This Blockbuster shopping basket makes a fantastic gift for any video rental store crusader, cinemaphile, or devoted Blockbuster buff. It is more than just a basket; it is a key that unlocks a treasure chest of memories and stories from a bygone era. Dimensions: Length: 16-7/8" Width: 11-3/4" Height: 8-7/8" Height (with handle): 13-5/8" CONDITION: In good, pre-owned condition. Obvious signs of previous use like scuffs and scrapes but fully functional. The "WEEK-LOAD" stickers are very worn and are partially peeling. Please see photos. To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING. QUESTIONS? JUST ASK. *ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.* "A shopping basket is a basket provided by stores for shoppers to carry around items before purchase. They are the smaller equivalent of shopping carts. Some sources also use the term shopping basket as a synonym for shopping bag, referring to bags owned by customers used to carry purchased items home.[1] Modern shopping baskets are usually made of plastic with a handle that folds downwards so that the baskets can be stacked. Shopping baskets are usually provided at store entrances together with shopping carts, with customers returning the baskets at check-out. Many stores have small carts that stacks of baskets can be placed onto, so that many baskets can be quickly moved from the check-out to the store entrance.[2] A rack of soft bags functioning as shopping baskets Some stores, primarily clothing stores or other stores selling soft items, may instead use cloth bags in lieu of shopping baskets. Such cloth bags function the same as shopping baskets but are usually not called baskets." (wikipedia.org) "A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are generally woven by hand. Some baskets are fitted with a lid, while others are left open on top. Uses Baskets serve utilitarian as well as aesthetic purposes. Some baskets are ceremonial, that is religious, in nature.[1] While baskets are usually used for harvesting, storage and transport,[2] specialized baskets are used as sieves for a variety of purposes, including cooking, processing seeds or grains, tossing gambling pieces, rattles, fans, fish traps, and laundry. History Prior to the invention of woven baskets, people used tree bark to make simple containers. These containers could be used to transport gathered food and other items, but crumbled after only a few uses. Weaving strips of bark or other plant material to support the bark containers would be the next step, followed by entirely woven baskets. The last innovation appears to be baskets so tightly woven that they could hold water....Baskets were originally designed as multi-purpose vessels to carry and store materials and to keep stray items about the home. The plant life available in a region affects the choice of material, which in turn influences the weaving technique. Rattan and other members of the Arecaceae or palm tree family, the thin grasses of temperate regions, and broad-leaved tropical bromeliads each require a different method of twisting and braiding to be made into a basket. The practice of basket making has evolved into an art. Artistic freedom allows basket makers a wide choice of colors, materials, sizes, patterns, and details. The carrying of a basket on the head, particularly by rural women, has long been practiced....Figurative and literary usage The phrase "to hell in a handbasket" means to deteriorate rapidly. The origin of this use is unclear. "Basket" is sometimes used as an adjective for a person who is born out of wedlock.[3] This occurs more commonly in British English. "Basket" also refers to a bulge in a man's crotch.[3] The word “basket” is frequently used in the colloquial “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” In this sense, the basket is a metaphor for a chance at success." (wikipedia.org) "A shopping cart (American English), trolley (British English, Australian English), or buggy (Southern American English, Appalachian English), also known by a variety of other names, is a wheeled cart supplied by a shop or store, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the premises for transport of merchandise as they move around the premises, while shopping, prior to heading to the checkout counter, cashiers or tills.[1] Increasing the amount of goods a shopper can collect increases the quantities they are likely to purchase in a single trip, boosting store profitability. In many cases customers can then also use the cart to transport their purchased goods to their vehicles, but some carts are designed to prevent them from leaving either the store or the designated parking area by magnetically locking the wheels. In many places in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, customers are encouraged to leave the carts in designated areas within the parking lot, and store employees will return the carts to the entrances. In some areas carts are connected by locking mechanisms that require the insertion of a coin or token to release an individual cart. Returning the cart to its designated area releases the coin to the customer....Design A child-friendly shopping cart design Most modern shopping carts are made of metal or a combination of metal and plastic and have been designed to nest within each other in a line to facilitate collecting and moving many at one time and also to save on storage space. The carts can come in many sizes, with larger ones able to carry a child. There are also specialized carts designed for two children, and electric mobility scooters with baskets designed for individuals with disabilities. As of 2006, approximately 24,000 children are injured in the United States each year in shopping carts.[3] Some stores both in the U.S. and internationally have child carrying carts that look like a car or van with a seat where a child can sit equipped with a steering wheel and sometimes a horn. Such "Car-Carts" may offer protection and convenience by keeping the child restrained, lower to the ground, protected from falling items, and amused.[4] Shopping carts are usually fitted with four wheels, however if any one wheel jams the cart can become difficult to handle. Most carts in the United States have swivel wheels at the front, while the rear wheels are fixed in orientation, while in Europe it is more common to have four swivel wheels. This difference in design correlates with smaller retail premises in Europe. The front part of the cart is often sectioned off in order to place household goods such as bleach, cleaning products etc. so that they do not mix with edible products. An alternative to the shopping cart is a small hand-held shopping basket. A customer may prefer a basket for a small amount of merchandise. Small shops, where carts would be impractical, often supply only baskets, or may offer a small cart which uses an inserted shopping basket within the frame of the cart to provide either choice to a customer....Retail store acceptance Past studies determined that retailers who did not offer shopping carts such as Sears suffered lower sales in comparison to retailers who did use shopping carts.[24] Subsequent to the introduction of shopping carts and centralized checkout lines at Sears stores, the company noticed a correlating increase in sales.[25] In 2004 British supermarket chain Tesco trialed shopping carts with user-adjustable wheel resistance, heart rate monitoring and calorie counting hardware in an effort to raise awareness of health issues. The cart's introduction coincided with Tesco's sponsorship of Cancer Research UK's fundraising event Race for Life....Some retailers, such as Target, have begun using carts fully made of recycled plastic with the only metal part being the wheel axles, drawing away from the established metal cart design. Target's cart has won design awards for its improved casters, interchangeable plastic parts to simplify repairs, and handles that improve maneuverability.[32] Other cart designs also incorporate additional features such as a cup holder for cold or hot drinks or a bouquet of flowers, along with other features such as a secure shelf for a tablet computer or mobile phone to allow the use of mobile coupons and circulars, or as seen in an all-plastic design created for the Wisconsin-based Festival Foods and also used by Whole Foods Market by Bemis Manufacturing Company, all of these features, along with extra rungs on the side rail designed to attach plastic bags or carry handles for beverages. Smaller half-sized carts for smaller shopping trips have also become common....Name The names of shopping carts vary by region. The following names are region-specific names for shopping carts. Many of these names may be used alone or in descriptive phrases such as grocery ____, shopping ____, or supermarket ____ for disambiguation:[43]     cart or basket – the United States, Canada and the Philippines     buggy – used by some in Southeast Michigan, Western Pennsylvania (where it is considered part of the region's dialect), the Southern United States and certain parts of Canada     trolley – the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa and some regions of Canada. Was also formerly used in the Philippines     carriage – used by some in the New England region of the United States     barrae or coohudder – some places in Scotland     bascart – various regions     wagon – New York, Hawaii     trundler – some places in New Zealand     wheelbasket – some places in the Eastern United States, notably Western Massachusetts" (wikipedia.org) "A video rental shop/store is a physical retail business that rents home videos such as movies, prerecorded TV shows, video game discs and other media content. Typically, a rental shop conducts business with customers under conditions and terms agreed upon in a rental agreement or contract, which may be implied, explicit, or written. Many video rental stores also sell previously viewed movies and/or new, unopened movies. In the 1980s, video rental stores rented VHS and Betamax tapes of movies, although most stores dropped Betamax tapes when VHS won the format war late in the decade. In the 2000s, video rental stores began renting DVDs, a digital format with higher resolution than VHS. In the late 2000s, stores began selling and renting Blu-ray discs, a format that supports high definition resolution. Increasing accessibilities of electronic medias in library circulation and widespread adoption of video on demand and video streaming services such as Netflix in the 2010s sharply reduced the revenues of most major rental chains, leading to the closure of most locations. Due to the precipitous drop in demand, few rental shops have survived into the present day. As of 2022, the small number of remaining stores tend to cater to film buffs seeking classic and historic films, art films, independent films, foreign language films, and cult films that are less available on streaming platforms....History 1970s The world's oldest business renting out copies of movies for private use was a film reel rental shop opened by Eckhard Baum in Kassel, Germany in the summer of 1975. Baum collected movies on Super 8 film as a hobby and lent pieces of his collection to friends and acquaintances. Because they showed great interest in his films, he came up with the idea of renting out films as a sideline.[1] Over the years, videotapes and optical discs were added to the range. Baum still operates the business as of April 2023[2] and was portrayed in the June 2006 documentary film Eckis Welt by Olaf Saumer.[3] The first professionally managed video rental store in the U.S., Video Station, was opened by George Atkinson in December 1977 at 12011 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. After 20th Century Fox had signed an agreement with Magnetic Video founder Andre Blay to license him 50 of their titles for sale directly to consumers, amongst them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A*S*H, Hello, Dolly!, Patton, The French Connection, The King And I and The Sound Of Music, Atkinson bought all the titles in both VHS and Beta formats, and offered them for rent.[4][5][6] Such stores led to the creation of video rental chains such as West Coast Video, Blockbuster Video, and Rogers Video in the 1980s. Sony released its first commercially available video recorders in the United States on June 7, 1975,[7] and the following year, on October 25, 1976, Universal and Disney filed a lawsuit against Sony in the case known as Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. The two studios tried to ban the sales of VCRs, and later the rental of movies, which would have destroyed the video rental business in the US. Justice Harry Blackmun sided with the studios, while Justice John Paul Stevens ruled in Sony's favor. Eventually, on January 17, 1984, the Supreme Court overruled the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor changed her mind, leading to a 5-to-4 ruling.[8][9][10][11] 1980s Video games started being rented in video shops from 1982. Some of the earliest game cartridges available for rental included Donkey Kong, Frogger and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. However, not many stores made them available for rental at the time.[12] In Japan, Nintendo Entertainment System games could be rented as early as 1983. However, in response to rental stores making unauthorized copies of game cartridges, video game companies, as well as the Recording Industry Association of Japan and trade associations, lobbied for an amendment to the Japanese Copyright Act that banned the rental of video games in Japan in 1984.[13] By mid-1985, the United States had 15,000 video rental stores, and many record, grocery, and drug stores also rented videotapes.[14] By May 1988, the number of specialty video stores was estimated to be 25,000, in addition to 45,000 other outlets that also offered video rentals. Grocery stores in the US rented tapes for as little as $0.49 as loss leaders.[15] The press discussed the VCR "and the viewing habits it has engendered — the Saturday night trip down to the tape rental store to pick out for a couple of bucks the movie you want to see when you want to see it".[16] Video rental stores had customers of all ages and were part of a fast-growing business. By 1987, for example, Pennsylvania had 537 stores that primarily rented videotapes, with annual spending per resident of $10.50. By 1989, six years after its founding, Philadelphia's West Coast Video operated over 700 stores in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom.[17] In 1987, home video market revenues for the year surpassed box office revenues....To cope with the videotape format war of the 1970s and 1980s, some stores initially stocked both VHS and Betamax cassettes, while others specialized in one format or the other. During the 1980s, most stores eventually phased out their Betamax section and became all-VHS, contributing to the eventual demise of Beta as a home video format (nevertheless, the Beta form factor remained in use as a professional video format in broadcasting as Betacam). 1990s-2000s In the late 1990s, DVDs began appearing in video rental stores. The format was smaller than tapes, allowing stores to stock more movies. As well, the thin, lightweight discs could be mailed, which made mail DVD services feasible. In the late 1990s, Netflix offered a per-rental model for each DVD but introduced a monthly subscription for DVDs concept in September 1999.[19] The per-rental model was dropped by early 2000, allowing the company to focus on the business model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees (a source of annoyance for bricks and mortar video store customers), shipping and handling fees, or per-title rental fees.[20] Rogers Video was the first chain to provide DVD rentals in Canada. Other chains and independent stores later transitioned to the newer format. Similarly, many video stores rented Blu-ray Disc movies after the high definition optical disc format war ended in the late 2000s. Some firms rented DVDs from automatic kiosk machines such as Redbox. Customers selected a movie from a list using buttons, paid by credit card, and the movie popped out of a slot. While traditional brick and mortar video rental stores were closing at a high rate, Redbox moved into existing retail locations such as supermarkets, and placed kiosks within them or outside of them to gain access to that consumer base.[21] As well, with Redbox, consumers could rent the movie at one kiosk (for example, one near their work) and return it to any Redbox kiosk (for example, one near their home), thus increasing convenience. Redbox surpassed Blockbuster in 2007 in the number of US locations,[22] passed 100 million rentals in February 2008,[23] and passed 1 billion rentals in September 2010.[24] Automatic DVD kiosks still required consumers to leave home twice, to rent the movie and return it. Widespread availability of video on demand (VOD) on cable TV systems and VHS-by-mail and DVD-by-mail services offered consumers a way of watching movies without having to leave home. Consumers preferred the convenience of choosing movies at home. With the advent of the World Wide Web, Internet services which streamed content as Netflix became increasingly popular starting in the mid–2000s. All the new ways of watching movies greatly reduced demand for video rental shops, and many closed as a result.[25][26][27] In 2000, there were 27,882 stores renting videos open in the US,[28] by late 2015, the number was down to 4,445.[29] Over 86% of the 15,300 U.S. stores (specializing in video rentals) open in 2007 were reported to have closed by 2017, bringing the total to approximately 2,140 remaining stores.[25] The total income from brick and mortar rentals for 2017 was about $390 million.[30] In mid-June 2020, Malaysian video rental chain Speedy Video closed its 14 remaining shops in response to competition from satellite television and streaming platforms....On January 5, 2021, Glenview, Illinois-based Family Video announced it was closing all its remaining video rental stores.[35] The company was the last remaining video rental chain in the United States; its closing marked the end of large video rental chains.[citation needed] In the 2020s, some video stores facing the loss of their business model have adapted by becoming non-profit organizations that focus on preserving an archive of film heritage and educating people about cinema.[36] Operating as a non-profit enables a video store to use volunteer personnel and apply for foundation grants, which can make it feasible to operate with less rental revenue.[36] Meanwhile, as the end of 2022, there are still more than 2,000 video rental stores in Japan, including Tsutaya and Geo. However, as is typical, the number is decreasing year by year.[37][38] In addition, Redbox has nearly 40,000 vending machine-type stores in the U.S. as of 2021.[39] In 2022, CBC News reported that Ottawa still has two DVD rental stores: Movies n' Stuff (12,000 titles for rent and 40,000 more in storage) and Glebe Video International (18,000 titles for rent). Movies n' Stuff's owner, Peter Thompson, attributes the continued interest in video rental stores to the rising cost of streaming subscription services and patrons' desire for the personalized film recommendations he provides. [40] Legacy and sociocultural impact According to Daniel Herbert, a film professor at University of Michigan who has written about the history of video rental stores, "[t]rips to the video store helped cement a local “movie culture” and contribute to the social fabric of a community in small but meaningful ways", in that customers sought advice from staff on what film to rent or chatted with other customers about "what to watch and why."[41] Film critic Collin Souter states that video stores gave "film lovers [a place] to congregate" and make "discoveries by browsing" the racks of film shelves, with the store providing a "film school, a social gathering, a place of cinematic discovery, date nights, and rites of passage."[42] He underscores the impact that video stores had by noting that when film director Quentin Tarantino, a former video rental store employee, learned that Video Archives in Hermosa Beach California (the store he had worked at) was closing, he bought the entire "inventory and recreated the store in his basement", as for him, "that place [was] a lifesaver."[42] A 2018 article about video stores states that they are appealing because "people crave being together to pick entertainment" and the chance to "chat with a staff member" "who can be relied upon for reviews and recommendations and who truly love what they do", while at the same time being "part of a "community of like-minded individuals."[43] One argument for video stores is the element of investment; if "you're taking time to walk into a physical place, grab something and take it home, you'll be at least a little bit invested."[44] As well, there is the "allure of browsing" the physical copies on the shelves (an appeal likened to the resurgence of interest in vinyl records in the 2020s).[43] Video rental stores such as Toronto's Bay St Video have a selection that is larger than a streaming platform's movie list. The owner of Bay St Video states that they "have movies that go back to the beginning of filmmaking, from the first silent films ever made to stuff that was just in theatres – and everything in between. We have the history of cinema.” He calls the store's selection of films "libraryesque – almost like an archive or a museum.” [44] Benjamin Owens, the owner of Film is Truth, a non-profit video rental outlet, points out that video stores may carry a larger selection of films than streaming platforms; he notes that while the "largest streaming provider, Netflix, has only 6,000 titles", Film is Truth has over 20,000 titles.[36] An additional benefit that video stores provide to communities is that they give access to films to people with poor access to Internet and those who are not comfortably with adapting to online consumption.[36] In 2010, Daniel Hanna, the owner of Toronto's Eyesore Cinema (an independent video shop) launched International Independent Video Store Day, which is held on the third Saturday of every October, to promote awareness of video rental stores and their unique contribution to film culture. [43] Film professor Daniel Herbert says that the demise of the video store may affect independent film production; he states that when the "large [video store] chains collapsed, studios lost a major channel for [low-budget, feature-length] indie movies", a format that streaming services are less likely to produce, as they prefer to make binge-watching-orientated television serials.[45] Richard Brody argues that from "1985 and 1995,... [there was] a generation of filmmakers that included Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, whose first films, Reservoir Dogs and Sex, Lies, and Videotape, respectively, were financed" by the home video market.[46] Brody argues that for aspiring filmmakers, video stores they worked at became "launching pads of true outsiders", and provided "counter-programming" to film school training by valorizing "anti-academic values of disorder, spontaneity, and enthusiasm."[46] Friday Night at the Video Store is a National Film Board documentary directed by Cédric Chabuel and Alexandra Viau that aims to "record and preserve a vestige of the brief existence" of five video store owners who "cling to their dream of keeping the video rental industry alive."[47] In popular culture The impact of video rental stores on popular culture is attested to by filmmakers' use of video stores as a setting for a number of films from the 1980s to the 2000s. Examples include Be Kind Rewind (2008), in which Jack Black and Mos Def play rental store staff in a shop scheduled for demolition; Clerks (1994), which depicts a day in the life of two bored, annoyed clerks, one that works in a video store; Speaking Parts (1989), a film directed by Atom Egoyan about a video rental store customer whose obsession with a minor actor pushes her to rent every film he has a bit part in; Remote Control (1988), a science fiction film about alien brainwashing scheme that uses a message hidden in a VHS tape, in which Kevin Dillon plays the role of a video store clerk; Air Doll (2009) a Japanese film about a blow-up doll that comes to life and begins working in a video rental store; Bleeder (1999), a Nicolas Winding Refn film in which Mads Mikkelsen plays a lonely video store clerk; and Watching the Detectives (2007), a film in which Cillian Murphy plays a video store clerk who is a film buff who tries to get his customers interested in cinema." (wikipedia.org) ""Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag", "go to hell in a bucket",[1] "sending something to hell in a handbasket" and "something being like hell in a handbasket" are variations on an allegorical locution of unclear origin, which describes a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately. New Orleans Mardi Gras day: wagon decorated as mini-float "Going to Hell in a Handbasket" with costume-wearing children Possible origins The origin of the phrase has been much debated. Its usage may be dated to the baskets used to catch guillotined heads in the eighteenth century. Early visualizations of the phrase might possibly be associated with religious iconography such as the stained glass windows of Fairford Church in Gloucestershire and Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Haywain, circa 1515, which portrays a large cart of hay being drawn by "infernal beings that drag everyone to Hell".[citation needed] 19th century usages In the 19th century, the phrase has been found associated with the American gold rush of the 1840s where men were lowered by hand in baskets down mining shafts to set explosives which could have deadly consequences.[2] The phrase has been used in sermons since at least 1841, as can be seen in the publication, Short Patent Sermons: "[Those people] who would rather ride to hell in a hand-cart than walk to heaven supported by the staff of industry".[3] Also in 1841, a mention of the phrase can be found in The Star of Freedom: "..Sanctified hypocrites will tell you not, and that, do what you will, you are all to go to hell in a handbasket, thereby, in fact, making you mere passive creatures in this world— passive to their will..."[4] In 1862, the journal Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome: or, The History of Popery stated: "...that noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fanatical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms."[5] I. Winslow Ayer's 1865 polemic[6] alleges, "Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois at an August meeting of Order of the Sons of Liberty said: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would 'send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.'"[7] In popular culture Various versions of the phrase have appeared in the title of several published works and other media:     To Hell in a Handbag is the title of a 2016 comic play by Helen Norton and Jonathan White.[8]     To Hell in a Handbasket is the name of humorist H. Allen Smith's 1962 autobiography.     Hell in a Handbasket was the title of a 1988 Star Trek comic book.     Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2006 book (ISBN 1585424587) by American cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who authors the cartoon strip This Modern World.     "Hell in a handbasket" was the name of an undescribed con requiring a trained cat referenced in the 2004 film, Ocean's Twelve.     "Hell in a Bucket" is a song off of the Grateful Dead's 1987 album In the Dark.     Hell in a Handbasket is a song from Voltaire's Ooky Spooky album.     Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2011 Meat Loaf album.     The phrase appears as part of the lyrics to country singer Doug Seegers' 2014 song Going Down to the River.     To Hell in a Handcart (2001) is a dystopian novel by English journalist Richard Littlejohn.     In the American television sitcom Friends (1994-2004), Helena Handbasket is the drag name of Charles Bing, the gay father of main character Chandler Bing." (Wikipedia.org) "Our Story In 2010, Blockbuster Corporate filed for bankruptcy. The once giant video store chain had fallen from over 9094 stores in 2004 to a mere 1700 struggling corporate locations. By April 2011 they were being auctioned off and the winning bid of 320 million dollars went to Dish Network,  a satellite TV provider. Slowly the new operators began closing corporate owned stores and in January 2014 the final Blockbuster Corporate location closed. This left only a few franchise locations around the world and at the end of March 2019 only 1 store remained, our store in Bend Oregon. Ken & Debbie Tisher along with their two teenagers (Marc and Rory) moved to Bend in September 1990. The following December they opened the very first Pacific Video Store on the south end of Bend. Two years later they opened the second of what was later to become 3 Central Oregon locations, here at 211 NE Revere. As small business owners the Tisher’s recognized they had the opportunity to bring the movie experience to our family homes. By offering the newest movie titles and our favorite classics on VHS they were able to give the Bend community an inexpensive alternative to going out to the theater. After successfully operating their locally owned video stores for 10 years, the Tisher’s, along with their partners, Debbie’s parents, Larry and Berniece Doan made the decision to become a Blockbuster Franchise in June of 2000. This was the beginning of our Blockbuster Story: how a small business, thru stubborn determination and a bit of pure luck, has been able to operate in the chaos of an ever changing home video world.   All proceeds from our product sales go directly to support our store and help us stay open. The majority of our products are also made right here in Bend. We thank you for your support!" (blockbuster.com) "Blockbuster, colloquially known as the Last Blockbuster, is a video rental store in Bend, Oregon. In 2018, it became the last Blockbuster store in the United States, and in 2020, it became the world's last remaining retail store using the Blockbuster brand.[2][3][4][5] History Interior, 2018 Located at the intersection of U.S. Route 20 and Revere Avenue, the Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, was opened by Ken and Debbie Tisher in 1992 as the second location of Pacific Video, a small video rental store chain in the state.[6] In 2000, Tisher converted it into a Blockbuster franchise store.[7] Sandi Harding has been the general manager since 2004.[8] Blockbuster LLC closed all of its corporate-owned stores by early 2014, leaving the Bend location as one of 50 remaining franchise stores.[9] In July 2018, it became the last remaining Blockbuster in the United States, and in March 2019, the last in the world.[10] Dish Network, the owner of the Blockbuster trademark, no longer grants new franchises with the Blockbuster name, which has cemented the Bend store's status as the last Blockbuster.[11] As of September 2023, “The Last Blockbuster” is one of three remaining video rental chain stores that are in operation throughout North America,[citation needed] its only competitor being Canada's Jumbo Video.[12] The location has become a popular tourist destination since becoming the last Blockbuster. Ken Tisher, who still owns the store,[13] continues to license the Blockbuster trademark from Dish Network on a yearly basis, which also allows the location to sell merchandise using the name.[3] The store stocks around 1,200 titles and has an estimated 4,000 members who regularly rent movies.[14][15] In 2018, 10 Barrel, a local brewery, released a dark ale celebrating the store, named The Last Blockbuster (with flavor hints of red licorice);[16] it was released at a block party celebrating the store (when it had become the last in the U.S.). The Ellen DeGeneres Show visited the store for a prank hidden camera segment in May 2019 (when it had become the last Blockbuster in the world).[17] The store is the subject of the 2020 documentary film The Last Blockbuster, created by Bend filmmakers and featuring various celebrities, such as Kevin Smith, Brian Posehn, and Ione Skye; it was released for sale and rent on DVD and VHS, as well as for streaming on Netflix.[18][19] Storefront and lawn, 2022 The store continued to operate without laying off staff during the.[20] It hosted sleepovers via Airbnb in September 2020.[21][22] The store was featured as a central plot point in the second episode of the 21st season of Family Guy, titled "Bend or Blockbuster".[23] The Netflix sitcom Blockbuster (2022), starring Randall Park and Melissa Fumero, is based on a fictionalized version of the last-remaining Blockbuster.[24] In 2023, the store released a commercial on Instagram which first ran at the same time as the Super Bowl LVII halftime show. The ad features a lone cockroach journeying across the aftermath of an apparent global catastrophe until it arrives at the last Blockbuster, which is still open.[25][26][27] The store saw an uptick in sales following the ad's release.[28] Memorabilia The store displays several pieces of film memorabilia that formerly belonged to actor Russell Crowe, including his hood from Robin Hood (2010), robe and shorts from Cinderella Man (2005), vest from Les Misérables (2012), and director's chairs from American Gangster (2007). The pieces were gifted from the last operating Alaskan Blockbuster in Anchorage following the closure in July 2018. The items were originally donated to the Alaska store for an April 2018 segment of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver." (wikipedia.org) "Free Blockbuster is a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood movie exchanges.[1] There are over 160 Free Blockbuster Boxes across the United States.[2] Typically, Free Blockbuster Boxes are made by upcycling abandoned newspaper distribution boxes.[3] They use the brand name Blockbuster on the boxes." (wikipedia.org) "Cinephilia (/ˌsɪnɪˈfɪliə/ SIN-ih-FIL-ee-ə; also cinemaphilia or filmophilia) is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in films, film theory, and film criticism. The term is a portmanteau of the words cinema and philia, one of the four ancient Greek words for love.[1] A person with a passionate interest in cinema is called a cinephile (/ˈsɪnɪfaɪl/ SIN-ih-fyle), cinemaphile, filmophile, or, informally, a film buff (also movie buff). To a cinephile, a film is often not just a source of entertainment as they see films from a more critical point of view. In English, cinephile is sometimes used interchangeably with the word cineaste (/ˈsɪniˌæst, ˈsɪneɪˌæst/ SIN-ee-ast, -⁠ay-), though in the original French the term cinéaste ([sine.ast]) refers to a filmmaker. Definition In a review of a book on the history of cinephilia, Mas Generis writes: "Cinephilia, despite its transparent etymological meaning—love of cinema—is a term that resists ready and shared understanding."[2] Generis also introduces a quote from film scholar Annette Michelson that states that there is, "No one such thing as cinephilia, but rather forms and periods of cinephilia."[2] As described by Antoine de Baecque and Thierry Frémaux, "The definitive essence of cinephilia is a culture of the discarded that prefers to find intellectual coherence where none is evident and to eulogize the non-standard and the minor."[3] Film historian Thomas Elsaesser writes that it "reverberates with nostalgia and dedication... more than a passion of going to the movies and only a little less than an entire attitude towards life"....Home video and the late 20th century As VHS tapes,[10] DVDs[11][12] and later digital access[13] became more common, cinephilia became less associated with filmgoing in theatres (much to the dismay of some cinephiles like Sontag).[14][1] While Japanese films have enjoyed worldwide distribution in the mid 20th century, the late 20th century saw an increase in interest amongst cinephiles in cinema from other Asian countries, especially China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and, later, Thailand. Contemporary cinephilia Though his films have met with mixed commercial and critical success, American director Michael Mann (pictured above at Cinémathèque Française in 2009) is often considered to be a major figure of vulgar auteurism by contemporary cinephiles.[15][16] Since the beginning of the 21st century, blogging has become a large part of cinephile culture. In the English-speaking world, established critics and theorists like Dave Kehr, David Bordwell, Jonathan Rosenbaum,[17] Glenn Kenny, Wheeler Winston Dixon and Adrian Martin, as well as non-professional cinephiles like Girish Shambu played key roles in building interest in films or theories amongst cinephiles by writing and communicating through blogs.[18] Forums and podcasts have become popular ways to stir discussion, allowing cinephiles from different countries and cultures to discuss ideas about film. The social networking and video streaming service MUBI caters specifically to cinephiles, allowing its members access to films that sometimes haven't been distributed theatrically or on video in their home countries. Home video distribution labels and distributors such as The Criterion Collection, Masters of Cinema, Facets, Vinegar Syndrome and Kino cater to cinephiles, often including large amounts of supplemental and critical material with their releases. As was the case with the French cinephilia of the post-war era, the international cinephilic community that has developed on the Internet often emphasizes films and figures that do not have strong critical or popular recognition, including many directors who work within genre film, in what is sometimes dubbed vulgar auteurism. These include Justin Lin,[19] Abel Ferrara,[20] Michael Mann,[21] Roland Emmerich,[22][23][24] The Farrelly Brothers,[25] Michael Bay,[26] John Carpenter,[21] Kathryn Bigelow,[21] James Gray,[20] David Fincher,[20] M. Night Shyamalan,[20] Brian De Palma[20] and Tony Scott....Cinephilia and filmmaking American director and cinephile Quentin Tarantino often makes references in his work to films and directors he admires. Throughout the history of cinema, there have been numerous directors who developed their understanding of cinema through filmgoing and participation in cinephile communities and organizations instead of within the formal settings of either a film school or a film studio. The directors of the French New Wave, who learned about filmmaking by attending screenings at film clubs and discussing movies amongst themselves, are often seen as models for cinephiles. Their intellectual omnivorousness, which equated an interest in cinema with strong understandings of literature, art and sometimes philosophy, has continued to have influence on cinephiles.[33] On the other hand, many directors emphasize their lack of cinephilia or interest in movies as in the cases of Abbas Kiarostami and Peter Greenaway, while acclaimed by cinephiles,[14][34] often emphasized their disinterests in cinema when interviewed....Telephilia Telephilia is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in television.[40] Coined by The New York Times critic Frank Rich as a pejorative term, telephilia was defined as "the pathological longing of Americans, no matter how talentless, to be on television".[41] This early definition was reflective of the negative attitude contemporary critics had toward television, which was frowned upon as inferior to film until the advent of quality television in the 1980s and 1990s.[42][43][44][45][46] With the rise of quality television, anti-heroic series like The Sopranos and The Wire were cited as improving television content thus earning critical praise.[47][48] Telephilia is also said to rival cinephilia for relevance, as production values are higher than ever before on shows such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Homeland.[49] Despite this development, there are still intellectuals [50] who consider telephilia as inferior to cinephilia, particularly in cases of obsessions for modern television programs belonging to genres such as melodrama and soap opera.[51] This is also explained by the view that highlighted the unattainable nature of the cinema, which makes it more desirable and extraordinary since it features a regime of presence-yet-absence filmic image, allowing a form of cinematic stardom capable of triggering a series of psychic mechanisms.[52] This is contrasted with television, which is perceived to be more present and immediate—with its stars "famous only in so far as he or she makes frequent television appearances."[52] Some observers, however, note that there is now a destabilization of traditional notions of what constitutes cinephilic tendency due to the availability of film on home media technology." (wikipedia.org) "A blockbuster is a work of entertainment—typically used to describe a feature film produced by a major film studio, but also other media—that is highly popular and financially successful. The term has also come to refer to any large-budget production intended for "blockbuster" status, aimed at mass markets with associated merchandising, sometimes on a scale that meant the financial fortunes of a film studio or a distributor could depend on it. Etymology The term began to appear in the American press in the early 1940s,[1] referring to the blockbuster bombs, aerial munitions capable of destroying a whole block of buildings.[2] Its first known use in reference to films was in May 1943, when advertisements in Variety[3] and Motion Picture Herald described the RKO film, Bombardier, as "The block-buster of all action-thrill-service shows!" Another trade advertisement in 1944 boasted that the war documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa, "hits the heart like a two ton blockbuster." Several theories have been put forward for the origin of the term in a film context. One explanation pertains to the practice of "block booking" whereby a studio would sell a package of films to theaters, rather than permitting them to select which films they wanted to exhibit. However, this practice was outlawed in 1948 before the term became common parlance; while pre-1948 high-grossing big-budget spectacles may be retroactively labelled "blockbusters," this is not how they were known at the time. Another explanation is that trade publications would often advertise the popularity of a film by including illustrations showing long queues often extending around the block, but in reality the term was never used in this way. The term was actually first coined by publicists who drew on readers' familiarity with the blockbuster bombs, drawing an analogy with the bomb's huge impact. The trade press subsequently appropriated the term as short-hand for a film's commercial potential. Throughout 1943 and 1944 the term was applied to films such as Bataan, No Time for Love and Brazil.[4] History Golden Age era The term fell out of usage in the aftermath of World War II but was revived in 1948 by Variety in an article about big budget films. By the early 1950s the term had become standardised within the film industry and the trade press to denote a film that was large in spectacle, scale and cost, that would go on to achieve a high gross. In December 1950 the Daily Mirror predicted that Samson and Delilah would be "a box office block buster", and in November 1951 Variety described Quo Vadis as "a b.o. blockbuster [...] right up there with Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind for boxoffice performance [...] a super-spectacle in all its meaning".[4] According to Stephen Prince, Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai had a "racing, powerful narrative engine, breathtaking pacing, and sense-assaulting visual style" (what he calls a "kinesthetic cinema" approach to "action filmmaking and exciting visual design") that was "the clearest precursor" and became "the model for" the "visceral" Hollywood blockbuster "brand of moviemaking" that emerged in the 1970s. According to Prince, Kurosawa became "a mentor figure" to a generation of emerging American filmmakers who went on to develop the Hollywood blockbuster format in the 1970s, such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.[5] Blockbuster era 1970s In 1975, the usage of "blockbuster" for films coalesced around Steven Spielberg's Jaws. It was perceived as a new cultural phenomenon: fast-paced, exciting entertainment, inspiring interest and conversation beyond the theatre (which would later be called "buzz"), and repeated viewings.[6] The film is regarded as the first film of the "blockbuster era", and founded the blockbuster film genre.[7] Two years later, Star Wars expanded on the success of Jaws, setting box office records and enjoying a theatrical run that lasted more than a year.[8] After the success of Jaws and Star Wars, many Hollywood producers attempted to create similar "event" films with wide commercial appeal, and film companies began green-lighting increasingly large-budget films, and relying extensively on massive advertising blitzes leading up to their theatrical release. These two films were the prototypes for the "summer blockbuster" trend,[9] in which major film studios and distributors planned their annual marketing strategy around a big release by July 4.[10] 1980s–1990s The next fifteen years saw a number of high-quality blockbusters released including the likes of Alien (1979) and its sequel, Aliens (1986), the first three Indiana Jones films (1981, 1984 and 1989), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Ghostbusters (1984), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), the Back to the Future trilogy (1985, 1989 and 1990), Top Gun (1986), Die Hard (1988), Batman (1989) and its sequel Batman Returns (1992), and The Hunt for Red October (1990).[11] 21st century Some examples of summer blockbusters from the 2000s include Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and Transformers (2007)—all of which founded successful franchises—and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Pixar's Up (2009). The superhero genre saw renewed interest with X-Men (2000), Spider-Man (2002), Batman Begins (2005) and its sequel The Dark Knight (2008) all proving to be very popular.[12] Blockbusters in the 2010s include Inception (2010), Ted (2012), Despicable Me (2010), The Conjuring (2013), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Wonder Woman (2017). Snowpiercer (2014) proved to be the rare example of a blockbuster that did not perform well in the North American market. Several established franchises continued to spawn successful entries with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) and Pixar's Toy Story 3 (2010) and Incredibles 2 (2018) among the highlights. Several older franchises were successfully resurrected by Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Jurassic World (2015), Man of Steel (2013), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and its sequel War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). The most successful franchise of the decade was arguably Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly The Avengers series.[13] Criticism Eventually, the focus on creating blockbusters grew so intense that a backlash occurred, with some critics and film-makers decrying the prevalence of a "blockbuster mentality",[14] lamenting the death of the author-driven, "more artistic" small-scale films of the New Hollywood era. This view is taken, for example, by film journalist Peter Biskind, who wrote that all studios wanted was another Jaws, and as production costs rose, they were less willing to take risks, and therefore based blockbusters on the "lowest common denominators" of the mass market.[15] In his 2006 book The Long Tail, Chris Anderson talks about blockbuster films, stating that a society that is hit-driven, and makes way and room for only those films that are expected to be a hit, is in fact a limited society.[16] In 1998, writer David Foster Wallace posited that films are subject to an inverse cost and quality law." (wikipedia.org) "Blockbuster Video[5] was an American video rental store chain. It was founded by David Cook in 1985 as a stand-alone mom-and-pop home video rental shop, but later grew into a national store chain featuring video game rentals, DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and cinema theater.[6] The company expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. At its peak in 2004,[7][8] Blockbuster employed 84,300 people worldwide and operated 9,094 stores.[9] Poor leadership and the impact of the Great Recession were major factors leading to Blockbuster's decline, as was the growing competition from Netflix's mail-order service, video on demand, and Redbox automated kiosks. Significant loss of revenue occurred during the late 2000s, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010.[10][11] The next year, its remaining 1,700 stores were bought by satellite television provider Dish Network,[12][13] and by 2014, the last 300 company-owned stores were closed.[14] Although corporate support for the brand ended, Dish retained a small number of franchise agreements, enabling some privately owned franchises to remain open. Following a series of further closures in 2019, only one franchised store remains open, located in Bend, Oregon, United States.[7][8][9][15][16][17] History 1985–1996: David Cook era and early growth A Blockbuster store in Durham, North Carolina Blockbuster's beginnings can be traced back to another company, Cook Data Services, founded by David Cook in 1978.[3][18] The company's primary goal was to supply software services to the oil and gas industries throughout Texas, but it was very unsuccessful.[18] Sandy Cook, David's wife, wanted to get into the video business, and her husband would soon study the industry and future prospects.[19] Using profit he made from the sale of David P. Cook & Associates, the subsidiary of his company, he decided to buy into a video store franchise in Dallas known as Video Works. When Video Works would not allow him to decorate the interior of his store with a blue-and-yellow design, he departed the franchise and opened the first Blockbuster Video in 1985 under his own company Blockbuster Video Inc.[20][21] When he realized the potential in video rentals, Cook abandoned the oil industry and began franchising the Blockbuster store.[22] The first Blockbuster store opened on October 19, 1985, in Dallas, Texas, with an inventory of 8,000 VHS and 2,000 Beta tapes.[23][24][25] The chain's name is derived from the term blockbuster, a Hollywood term for a successful film. Cook's experience with managing huge databases proved helpful in driving innovation within the industry.[3] Following early success from the company's first stores, Cook built a $6-million warehouse in Garland, Texas, to help sustain and support future growth that allowed new stores to open quickly.[3] Blockbuster would often custom-tailor a store's inventory to its neighborhood, based on local demographics.[3] In 1987, Waste Management co-founder Wayne Huizenga, who originally had reservations about entering the video rental industry, agreed to acquire several Blockbuster stores.[26] At that time, there were 19 stores, attracting Huizenga's associate John Melk's attention due to its efficiency, family-friendly no porn image and business model. Huizenga and Melk utilized techniques from their waste business and Ray Kroc's model of expansion to rapidly expand Blockbuster, and soon they were opening a new store every 24 hours.[27][28] They took over many of the existing Blockbuster franchise stores, and Huizenga spent much of the late 1980s acquiring several of Blockbuster's rivals, including Major Video. In 1989, Nintendo attempted to halt Blockbuster's ability to rent video games, filing multiple lawsuits and lobbying the U.S. Congress to ban the practice.[29] Nintendo ultimately lost the battle, which paved the way for future video game rental.[29][30] Blockbuster sponsored the Blockbuster Bowl in American football, which began in 1990[31] and was played at Joe Robbie Stadium outside Miami. The first three editions were played under that name before Blockbuster withdrew its sponsorship. Blockbuster membership card (c. 1990) In 1990, Blockbuster bought mid-Atlantic rival Erol's which had more than 250 stores.[32] In 1992, Blockbuster acquired the Sound Warehouse and Music Plus music retail chains and created Blockbuster Music.[33][34] In October 1993, Blockbuster took a controlling interest in Spelling Entertainment Group, a media company run by television producer Aaron Spelling.[35] Blockbuster purchased Super Club Retail Entertainment Corp. on November 22, 1993, from Philips Electronics, N.V. for 5.2 million shares of Blockbuster stock. This brought approximately 270 Record Bar, Tracks, Turtles and Rhythm and Views music stores and approximately 160 video retail superstores into the corporation.[36] It also owned 35% of Republic Pictures; that company merged with Spelling in April 1994.[37] Blockbuster became a multibillion-dollar company, but Huizenga was worried about how new technology could threaten their business, such as video on demand and the growth of cable television. In 1991, just three days after Time Warner had announced it would upgrade its cable system, Blockbuster's shares dropped more than 10 percent.[38] In 1993, he made an attempt to expand into other areas by investing in Viacom.[39][40] Huizenga also considered buying a cable company, but this was unknown territory for Blockbuster and he decided not to take the risk. He also had the idea of a 2,500-acre Blockbuster sports and amusement park in Florida, something Blockbuster was still considering as late as August 1994.[41] Unable to come up with a proper solution about how to face the growing threats to the traditional videostore, he made the decision to sell Blockbuster to Viacom and pull out.[42] Viacom acquired Blockbuster in 1994 for $8.4 billion to help finance its bid for Paramount in the bidding war with QVC Network Inc.[43][44] Blockbuster's stock trade had been dropping steadily the months before the merger, with a small rise after the deal was announced,[45] and by the latter part of the decade, its worth was estimated to have fallen to just $4.6 billion.[46] The Blockbuster Block Party concept was test-marketed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1994. It was an "entertainment complex" aimed at adults, containing eight themed areas housing a restaurant, games, laser tag arena, and motion simulator rides, and was housed in a windowless building the size of a city block.[47] During the 1990s Blockbuster expanded in the United Kingdom, purchasing that country's Ritz Video chain. The stores were rebranded to Blockbuster.[citation needed] The original Blockbuster company, Blockbuster Video Inc., was merged into the parent company Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. which had earlier replaced the Blockbuster Entertainment Company. In 1996, Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. merged into a new Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation[48] and the retail stores, then called Blockbuster Video, were renamed Blockbuster. The logo changed slightly, but retained the ITC Machine font.[49] In November 1996 Blockbuster confirmed that it was moving its headquarters from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to the Renaissance Tower in downtown Dallas.[50] Most of the workers at the Florida headquarters did not want to relocate, so Blockbuster planned to hire around 500 to 600 new employees for its Dallas headquarters. The company had offered various relocation packages to all of its Fort Lauderdale staff.[51] The second Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation was later merged into Blockbuster, Inc. 1997–2006: John Antioco era, Netflix sale turndown, and financial peak In June 1997, Taco Bell president John Antioco resigned from the company to become CEO of Blockbuster.[52] Also that year, Warner Bros. offered Antioco an exclusive rental deal, seeing as DVDs were emerging as the new home video medium. Blockbuster was to have rights to rent new DVD releases for a period of time before they went on sale to the general public. The studio was to receive 40% of rental revenues in return, which was the same deal already in place for VHS rentals. Blockbuster turned the offer down, and the studio responded by lowering its DVD wholesale price in order to compete with the rental industry. Walmart seized the opportunity and in a few years surpassed Blockbuster as the studios' single largest source of revenue. Other mass retailers soon followed suit, selling DVDs below wholesale price as a loss leader in hopes of drawing more customers to their stores and selling them more profitable items. Unable to match prices, Blockbuster's business model was severely affected.[53] In 1998, Blockbuster created DEJ Productions, which acquired 225 films primarily to provide exclusive content to its Blockbuster stores prior to being sold off to First Look Studios in 2005.[54] During that same year, Blockbuster bought the Irish video rental store Xtra-vision, with over 200 stores in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In 2009, Blockbuster sold off its Irish operations to Birchall Investments, with the few Xtra-vision stores in the United Kingdom being rebranded as Blockbuster. A Blockbuster sign in Stamford, Connecticut, which stood until March 2023, when it was removed and listed for sale online[55] In late 1998, Blockbuster launched a loyalty program called Blockbuster Rewards that allowed customers to earn free rentals, including one older title each month from the category of Blockbuster Favorites. After the 1998 test launch, the chain went nationwide with the program in 1999.[56] In August the same year, Viacom sold the Blockbuster Music chain to Wherehouse Entertainment, which was subsequently purchased by Trans World Entertainment in 2003.[57] In mid-2000, the company partnered with Enron in an attempt to create a video-on-demand service.[58] The agreement was supposed to last for 20 years; however, Enron terminated the deal in March 2001 over fears that Blockbuster would not be able to provide sufficient films for the service (Enron also filed for bankruptcy that year).[59] Also in 2000, Blockbuster turned down a chance to purchase the fledgling Netflix for $50 million (~$81.1 million in 2022).[60] In 2002, Blockbuster acquired Movie Trading Company, a Dallas chain that buys, sells, and trades movies and games, to study potential business models for DVD and game trading. Also that year, it acquired Gamestation, a 64-store UK computer and console games retailer chain, and purchased DVD Rental Central for $1 million, an Arizona father-and-son online DVD-rental company with about ten thousand subscribers. DVD Rental Central would eventually become Blockbuster Online.[61] On or around October 14, 2004, Blockbuster was spun-off from Viacom. Online DVD subscriptions were introduced on Blockbuster.com, also known as Blockbuster Online.[62] Blockbuster also rolled out its "Game Rush" store-in-store concept to approximately 450 domestic company-operated stores. Blockbuster began game and DVD trading in selected U.S. stores.[63] At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had more than 9,000 stores worldwide.[8] In December 2004, Blockbuster announced its intention to pursue a hostile takeover of Hollywood Video, its major U.S. competitor.[64] After several extensions of the tender offer, Blockbuster withdrew due to FTC opposition.[65] To counter the Blockbuster offer, Hollywood Video agreed to a buyout in January 2005 by a smaller competitor, the Dothan, Alabama-based Movie Gallery. Since then, Movie Gallery has filed for bankruptcy twice and its entire chain of stores has been liquidated. In May 2005, financier Carl Icahn waged a successful proxy fight to add himself and two other members to the board. Icahn accused Blockbuster of overpaying chairman and CEO John F. Antioco, who had served in that capacity since 1997, receiving $51.6 million in compensation for 2004. Icahn was also at odds with Antioco on how to revive profit at Blockbuster. Antioco scrapped late fees in January, started an internet service, and decided to keep the company independent, while Icahn wanted to sell out to a private equity firm.[66] Also in 2005, Blockbuster began a campaign promoting its "No more late fees" policy.[67] The campaign proved controversial, with Associated Press reporting that the new policy actually charged users the full price of the movie or game after eight days which they could cancel by returning the product in question and paying a fee.[68] More than 40 states filed suit against the company for false advertising.[68] Blockbuster later settled the suit by agreeing to refunds, as well as promising to better explain the policy.[68] Vintage Stock acquired the Movie Trading Company name from Blockbuster in 2006, and continues to use the name for Dallas-area stores. 2007–2011: James Keyes era, financial decline, and bankruptcy Blockbuster DVD-by-mail envelope A billion-dollar campaign called "Total Access" was introduced in 2007 as a strategy against Netflix. Through Blockbuster Online, customers could rent a DVD online and receive a new movie for free when they returned it to a Blockbuster store. While it was a major success every free movie cost the company two dollars, but the hope was that it would attract enough new subscribers to cover the loss. Netflix felt threatened, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings approached Antioco with a suggestion to buy Blockbuster's online business. In return, a new system would be introduced where customers could return their movies to a Blockbuster store. Before the deal could be realized, board member Carl Icahn intervened, refusing to let the company lose more money through Total Access. Antioco was pushed out in July and replaced with James Keyes, who rejected Hastings' proposal, raised the price of online DVD rentals and put an end to the free movie deal. As a consequence, Blockbuster Online's previously massive growth quickly stopped.[70] Antioco's departure reportedly also involved continued controversy over his compensation. He left with a $24.7 million severance package.[71] On June 19, 2007, after a pilot program launched in late 2006, Blockbuster announced that it had chosen Blu-ray over HD DVD format to rent in a majority of its stores. In the pilot program, Blockbuster offered selected titles for rental and sale in 250 stores. Blockbuster stocked Blu-ray titles in almost 5,000 stores across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Australia.[72] On July 2, 2007, the company named James W. Keyes, former president and CEO of 7-Eleven, as the new chairman and CEO. He introduced a new business strategy that included enhancements to existing stores. The following month in August, Blockbuster acquired Movielink for $6.6 million, forecasting a shift to streaming video.[73] Movielink was an online video service that allowed customers to download movie rentals from a library of over 6,000 films, created in 2002 by five major studios including Warner Bros, MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Universal Studios.[74] The move gave Blockbuster the opportunity to move away from the unprofitable Total Access (DVD-by-mail) service in favor of online streaming. Despite growing competition from Netflix and Redbox, the company downplayed the threat, choosing instead to focus on Apple and Walmart as their primary competition.[75] On September 14, 2007, Blockbuster GB Ltd bought a number of retail stores from ChoicesUK plc. ChoicesUK is an AIM-listed multi-channel distributor and retailer of DVDs, computer games, and CDs. The sale secured employment for approximately 450 employees across 59 stores in the UK. As part of the transaction, Blockbuster GB rebranded the stores as Blockbuster.[citation needed] On February 17, 2008, Blockbuster proposed a buyout of struggling Circuit City. However, following a due diligence review of Circuit City's financial books, Blockbuster withdrew its offer in July 2008. Analysts were not favorable to the proposed deal, viewing it as a desperate effort to save two struggling retailers rather than a bold turnaround initiative.[76] Subsequently, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy on November 10, 2008, and, after liquidating all of its stores, ceased operations on March 8, 2009.[77] At the beginning of 2010, Blockbuster had over 6,500 stores, of which 4,000 were in the U.S.—[78] a number that fell to 3,425 in late October the same year.[79] In the United States it planned to close between 810 and 960 retail stores, and instead launch as many as 10,000 "Blockbuster Express" video rental kiosks by the middle of 2010.[80] It has been claimed that more than 43 million U.S. households had Blockbuster memberships....n March 2010, Blockbuster began "Additional Daily Rates", or "ADRs", for rentals not returned by their due date in the United States, having already used this procedure in other countries such as the UK for many years. An ADR was charged for each day a member kept the rental beyond the rental terms. On March 12, 2010, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Blockbuster's independent registered public accounting firm, issued its audit opinion disclosing substantial doubt about Blockbuster's ability to continue as a going concern. This report was included in Blockbusters's 10-K SEC filing. On March 17, 2010, Blockbuster issued a bankruptcy warning after continued drops in revenue threatened its ability to service its nearly $1 billion (~$1.32 billion in 2022) debt load. By April 1, 2010, Carl Icahn had resigned from Blockbuster's board of directors and sold nearly all his remaining Blockbuster stock.[83] Blockbuster paired up with Time Warner to have Warner Bros. movies made available in Blockbuster stores on the DVD release date and not be subject to a four-week delay.[citation needed] Similar agreements were also made with Universal and 20th Century Fox. The liquidation of Movie Gallery began in May 2010, eliminating Blockbuster's primary competitor. During the same month a dissident shareholder, Gregory S. Meyer, in an effort to be elected to Blockbuster's board of directors, engaged in a proxy battle with Blockbuster's board, alleging that the board had been responsible for significant destruction of value to shareholders. Meyer was elected to the board at Blockbuster's shareholder meeting in Dallas on June 24, 2010. On July 1, 2010, the company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after its shareholders failed to pass a reverse stock split plan aimed at heading off involuntary delisting because of the stock's trading at well below $1 (~$1.00 in 2022) per share.[84] The stock was then traded on the OTCBB (over-the-counter bulletin board). A former Blockbuster store in the Midwest (2012) Blockbuster was unable to make a $42.4 million(~$55.8 million in 2022) interest payment to bondholders and was given until August 13, 2010, to pay off the debt. The company hired Jeff Stegenga to be its chief restructuring officer (CRO) in an effort to satisfy bondholder demands and recapitalize the company. After failing to pay on August 13, bondholders gave Blockbuster until September 30, 2010. On August 26, 2010, news media reported that Blockbuster was planning to file a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-September. In light of this news, the company's chief financial officer (CFO), Tom Casey, resigned on September 11. He was replaced by Dennis McGill, formerly CFO of Safety-Kleen Systems, Inc. On September 23, 2010, Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to challenging losses, $900 million (~$1.19 billion in 2022) in debt, and strong competition from Netflix, Redbox, and video on-demand services.[85][86] Movie Gallery/Hollywood Video had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation earlier in 2010 for similar reasons.[87] At the time of its Chapter 11 filing, Blockbuster said it would keep its 3,300 stores open;[88] however, that December it announced it would close an additional 182 stores by the end of April 2011 in attempts to emerge from bankruptcy.[89] It was reported in February 2011 that Blockbuster and its creditors had not come up with a Chapter 11 exit plan and that the company would be sold for $300 million (~$387 million in 2022) or more, along with taking over debts and leases.[88] Blockbuster admitted that it might not be able to meet financial obligations required under its Chapter 11 filing, a circumstance which could mandate conversion of the bankruptcy filing to Chapter 7 (liquidation).[90] On March 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a claim disclosing that Blockbuster did not have the funds to continue reorganizing and should liquidate. On March 28, 2011, South Korean telecommunications company SK Telecom made a surprise bid to buy Blockbuster.[91] Dish Network had also expressed interest in bidding, as did Carl Icahn, despite calling Blockbuster "the worst investment I ever made".[92] Dish eventually won the auction on April 6, 2011, agreeing to buy Blockbuster for $320 million and the assumption of $87 million in liabilities and other obligations.[12] On April 19, 2011, it was announced that Dish would keep only 500 Blockbuster stores open. The acquisition was completed on April 26, 2011.[13][93] In April 2011, Dish Network told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court that it needed more time to negotiate with landlords in an effort to keep more than 600 Blockbuster stores open.[94] In April 2011, Blockbuster's landlords objected to its assumption of leases that it sought to assign to soon-to-be-owner Dish Network Corp., claiming that they did not have adequate assurance that the new owner would honor those leases. Blockbuster signed a deal with ITV Studios Global Entertainment to launch ITV Programmes released on DVDs, Blu-rays, etc.[95] On May 6, 2011, Keyes resigned as Blockbuster's CEO. 2011–2015: Michael Kelly era Keyes was replaced by Michael Kelly under the new title of Blockbuster's president. On August 31, 2011, the liquidators announced the closure of the remaining 253 Canadian stores and shutting of the entire Canadian unit.[96] In September 2011, it was announced that Blockbuster and Dish Network would launch a new service called Blockbuster Movie Pass that would compete with Netflix. For US$10 per month the members would have access to both a streaming service and movies and games-by-mail. The package was only available for subscribers of Dish Network's pay-TV service, and it eventually folded.[97][98] A "now closed" Blockbuster store in Ypsilanti, Michigan undergoing a liquidation sale in 2013 On January 13, 2012, Dish CEO Joe Clayton announced that while Dish had planned to keep 90% of the stores in operation, meaning around 15,000 employees would remain employed, because of market factors "there are ones that aren't going to make it. We will close unprofitable stores. We will close additional stores." Clayton did not say when these additional closings would happen and only remarked that some stores were unprofitable. The Dish chief would not say which stores the company was planning to close, but that each potential closing was to be assessed on a "case by case basis".[99] On October 4, 2012, Dish Network announced that it was scrapping plans to make Blockbuster into a Netflix competitor.[100] On January 16, 2013, Blockbuster UK entered into administration and Deloitte was appointed to run the business while trying to find a buyer while some of the stores remained open.[citation needed][101] Between November 6, 2013, and January 12, 2014, all 300 remaining corporate-owned Blockbuster stores in the U.S. were closed and the DVD-by-mail program was shut down.[102][103][104][105] The Blockbuster official website identified 51 franchise locations remaining in operation in the U.S. in 2014.[106] Dish maintained its video streaming services, Blockbuster on Demand and Blockbuster@Home,[107] until they were replaced by a new subscription service in April 2015 called "DISH Movie Pack".[108][109] In May 2015, Michael Kelly retired from Dish.[110] Blockbuster's decline was attributed to poor leadership according to others in the industry. Franchise owner Ken Tisher said in 2015, "Blockbuster, if it isn't already, is going to go into the Harvard Business Review for how not to run a business, or how to run a business into the ground."[111] Keith Hoogland, owner of Family Video, attributed poor decision-making as a primary reason the company did not survive.[112] Jonathan Salem Baskin, a former Blockbuster marketing communications executive, stated, "Digital would have changed Blockbuster's business, for sure, but it wasn't its killer. That credit belongs to Blockbuster itself."[113] Commentators view Blockbuster as a main example of failing to change with the times.[114][115][116] 2015–present: Post-Kelly era and continual decline Main article: Blockbuster (Bend, Oregon) The last remaining Blockbuster located in Bend, Oregon Although Blockbuster stores had the option of remaining open by paying a licensing fee to Dish,[117] a corporate entity was no longer available to provide supplies of branded products, forcing franchisees to design and produce their own.[118] Additional store closures continued.[119][120][121] By January 2018,[122] the company's website listed nine remaining franchise-owned stores in the U.S., including six in Alaska, two in Oregon, and one in Texas.[123][124] Eight of those nine had closed by August 2018, leaving only one store in Bend, Oregon.[17][125][126] In March 2019, the last remaining store outside of the United States, located in Morley, Western Australia, closed its doors.[127] The Bend location became the last remaining Blockbuster in the world;[16] it serves as a tourist destination, housing Blockbuster memorabilia and Russell Crowe film props which John Oliver had donated to an Alaska store.[128] In August 2020, the location was listed as an Airbnb rental for a 1990s-themed sleepover on three separate nights in September; each were limited to guests from the area in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.[129][130] The entity that operated Blockbuster prior to the sale to Dish remains nominally active under the name BB Liquidating Inc., and trades as a penny stock.[131] However, it no longer has any assets or ties to the Blockbuster brand or its remaining franchise location.[132] In activity related to the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021, the BB Liquidating stock surged, despite there being "no value for the common shareholders in the bankruptcy liquidation process, even under the most optimistic of scenarios."[133] On September 21, 2022, the Blockbuster Twitter account revealed the Blockbuster World Video Game Championship 3. The event was held during the Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2022.[134] On March 23, 2023, the Blockbuster web page was re-activated, with the message "We are working on rewinding your movie".[135] Business model The standard business model for video rental stores had traditionally been to pay a large flat fee per video, approximately $65, and offer unlimited rentals for the lifetime of the medium itself. Sumner Redstone, whose Viacom conglomerate then owned Blockbuster, personally pioneered a new revenue-sharing arrangement for video in the mid-1980s. Blockbuster obtained videos for little cost and kept 60% of the rental fee, paying the other 40% to the studio, and reporting rental information through the global media measurement and research company Rentrak. In addition to benefiting from a lower initial price, Blockbuster also capitalized on the fact that movies were generally not available for purchase at affordable price points during initial release periods. Thus customers had a choice to rent, wait, or buy the film on tape at the much higher manufacturer's suggested retail price targeted at other rental chains and film enthusiasts, which at that time ranged between $70–$100 per title.[citation needed] Quantity and selection of titles Blockbuster stores followed a strategy of emphasizing access to the most popular new releases, obtaining early access and stocking many copies of the new-release titles, with a relatively narrower range of selections than traditional independent video stores.[136] Much of the shelf space in the stores was devoted to popular titles that were placed relatively sparsely on the shelves with the entire front cover visible, so customers could browse casually and quickly, rather than having a more diverse selection with fewer copies of each title. Blockbuster sometimes contracted with studios to obtain earlier access to new titles than other companies could achieve. Examples of such contracts were those in which Blockbuster became the exclusive rental chain for new releases from WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, formally WWF, World Wrestling Federation), Funimation, Rhino, Paramount, DreamWorks, DWA, Universal, Lionsgate, Summit, Anchor Bay, Manga, The Weinstein Company, Dimension, Miramax, Hollywood, Touchstone, Disney, Buena Vista, 20th Century Fox, MGM/UA, Orion, Sony, Columbia, Tristar, Image, Shout! Factory, Warner Bros., HBO, New Line Cinema and Allumination FilmWorks.[137][138] As one commentator complained:     Blockbuster was once an unstoppable giant whose franchises swept across the country putting mom and pop video stores out of business left and right by offering a larger selection of new releases, pricing them at a lower point due to the volume they worked in... Gone were the fragmented, independently owned shops that were often unorganized treasure troves of VHS discoveries. In their place were walls of new releases: hundreds of copies of a small handful of films. Everyone watching the same thing, everyone developing the same limited set of expectations... They put focus entirely on what was new rather than on discovering film history ...[136] When a title was no longer a new release, each store would retain a few copies of it and typically sell off the rest as "previously viewed" for discounted prices.[139] Older movies would be re-categorized as "Blockbuster Favorite" titles and placed in a different area of the store.[140] Most Blockbuster locations also accepted trade-ins of used movies, TV shows, and games.[141] Since Blockbuster's founding in 1985, the chain refused to stock adult films in order to portray the brand as family-friendly.[142] However, the company did carry R-rated and unrated films. Other ventures Blockbuster Entertainment Awards Main article: Blockbuster Entertainment Awards Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. ran an awards show annually from 1995 to 2001 called the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. In November 2001, Blockbuster announced that it would cancel the 2002 award show following concerns about viewership and celebrity attendance following the September 11 attacks.[143][144] Blockbuster Express Blockbuster Express was a movie-rental kiosk brand sublicensed for use by licensee NCR Corporation. In 2011, nearly 10,000 Blockbuster Express kiosks were in operation.[145][146] Apart from the license to use the Blockbuster brand name, Blockbuster Express kiosks are unrelated to Blockbuster LLC, its stores, its DVD-by-mail service, or its online streaming service. The names Blockbuster Express[147] and Blockbuster Video Express[148] had also been used for smaller Blockbuster retail stores in the United Kingdom. GameRush GameRush store at a Blockbuster in Blue Ash, Ohio In 2004, Blockbuster opened store-within-a-store video game rental and sales stores called GameRush inside Blockbuster locations in limited markets.[149] Blockbuster also acquired Rhino Video Games, a chain of video game stores in the Southwest, and operated it alongside GameRush.[150] These stores sold and bought DVDs, games, game consoles, and accessories. GameRush was positioned as a direct competitor to stores such as GameStop and GameCrazy. Blockbuster used its location status to get instant coverage; it also promoted these stores by hosting video-game tournaments, special trade-in offers, and a more 'hip' look to the selection and staff. However, when Blockbuster introduced the discontinuation of late fees, GameRush was put on the chopping block. In January 2007, Blockbuster sold Rhino Video Games to GameStop Corp.[151] According to the Blockbuster Twitter account, GameRush was to be part of the "new Blockbuster" in 2016[152] and even had its own Twitter profile, however the GameRush Twitter account has not been active since January 2017. Discovery Zone In 1993, Blockbuster invested in the indoor kids' play restaurant Discovery Zone.[153] In 1995, Blockbuster bought more stock to take control of the company. Discovery Zone filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 26, 1996, after changes in management & aggressive expansion put them in heavy debt. DZ was emerged a year later under Wellspring Associates ownership, with Blockbuster no longer have control of the chain.[154] Discovery Zone abruptly closed half of its locations in 1999 and sold thirteen others to the parent company of Chuck E. Cheese's.[153] The rest of the Discovery Zone locations closed in December 2001. The chain was revived as a single location in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 7, 2020. It remains in operation, but it is not owned by Blockbuster.[155] International operations Australia A Blockbuster Video store in Wagga Wagga Marketplace, New South Wales, Australia A Blockbuster store in Sandy Bay, an inner suburb of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia In Australia, the first Blockbuster store was opened in 1991 in Melbourne. In 1992, the Virgin Group and Blockbuster Inc entered into a joint venture to set up Australia's first Virgin Megastores in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. This lasted until Virgin sold its interest in the six stores to Blockbuster, which promptly rebranded them in 1993 as Blockbuster Music. In 1994, Australian store numbers rose to 54 with the acquisition of Major Video and Focus chains in both Victoria and South Australia. In 1995, the growth continued with the opening of the 100th video store in the country. By the end of 1998, Blockbuster Australia opened over 125 stores. In July 1998, Blockbuster Australia launched into franchising with the conversion of the former Video Flicks franchise group in Queensland, and the former Movieland group in Western Australia six months later. Also in 1998, the company sold its last two Australian Blockbuster Music stores in Pitt Street, Sydney, and Chapel Street, Melbourne to Brazin Limited, which incorporated them under its Sanity Entertainment brand. Throughout 1999 and 2000, Blockbuster Australia quickly expanded its franchise store network through the conversion of smaller groups and the granting of individual franchises. Before 2005, this was done through the acquisition of the Movies Plus Group and the conversion of some individual Movies 4U and Movieland outlets.[156][157][158] In February 2007, Blockbuster sold its entire Australian store network to Video Ezy. At the time, Blockbuster Australia comprised 370 outlets nationwide—29 owned by the company and 341 owned by franchisees. Video Ezy had 518 Australian outlets, all of them being owned by franchisees, pushing the combined group's market share to 40% of the country's video rental sector. Video Ezy committed to the master franchise agreement with Blockbuster for 10 years operating the brand with the possibility of renewal for a further 10 years after that. As a consequence of the deal, the company changed its name from Video Ezy to Franchise Entertainment Group (FEG).[159][160][161][162] In October 2010, FEG transferred control of the Video Ezy Australia and Blockbuster Australia online businesses to its newly acquired and reorganized company, Elan Media Partners, leaving FEG to manage the franchise relationships with individual Video Ezy and Blockbuster outlets.[163][164] Despite the two brands coming together, Video Ezy and Blockbuster franchises closed 270 stores across Australia in the four years to August 2011. Additional store closings would go on for several years,[165][166][167][168] until all the stores in Australia had closed, although vending kiosks with the Blockbuster logo were still in operation until early 2021.[169][170][171] Australia's last Blockbuster store, in Morley, Western Australia, was closed at the end of March 2019.[127][172] Brazil Blockbuster was the largest video rental chain in the country, but finances were not good enough due to high rental prices. Lojas Americanas, the largest Brazilian department store, acquired half of the shares and now it is named under "Americanas Express Blockbuster". The store layout was similar to a regular American store with a Game Rush, but instead of games it offers electronics goods like computers and DVD players, groceries like candies and microwave popcorn, and even toys from Mattel and Hasbro's board games. In January 2007, when Blockbuster had 127 stores across Brazil, it sold its Brazilian stake for $87.4 million (~$119 million in 2022) and gave Lojas Americanas exclusive rights to the Blockbuster brand in the country for 20 years. The average store has an interior on about 400 m2, where 80-100 m2 is dedicated to movies.[173][174] Canada A Blockbuster store in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, which featured the 1985–1997 logo In Canada, Blockbuster Canada (established in 1990) had operated independently, and it initially remained financially stable.[175] It began a partnership with Wind Mobile in December 2009, selling mobile phones at all stores in cities where Wind's service was available. Phone sales began in Toronto and Calgary, later expanding to other cities with Wind coverage. Some stores even featured a full Wind "store-in-a-store" for postpaid activations and a larger selection of devices.[176] However, on May 3, 2011, it was announced that the company had gone into receivership.[177] On May 25, 2011, it was announced that 146 stores, accounting for approximately 35% of the company's stores in Canada, would be shut down effective June 18, 2011. On August 31, 2011, Blockbuster Canada announced that no buyer could be found for its remaining stores that were acceptable to the court-appointed bankruptcy receiver, and that it would wind down operations and close all stores by December 31, 2011. The company had acted as a guarantor towards Blockbuster's remaining debt.[178] A small chain called Megahit Video began in Canada in 1986. It appropriated a similar colour scheme to Blockbuster and grew to a chain of 50 stores in smaller towns not serviced by a Blockbuster. The chain was financially stable with 49 corporately owned stores and one franchise until a lawsuit filed by Blockbuster LLC in 1994 forced the closure of all of the Megahit stores. One Megahit Video, the sole franchise, survived and is still in operation in Newfoundland as a video store and collectible shop.[citation needed] Denmark Blockbuster came to Denmark in 1996 with the acquisition of the 29 Christianshavn video stores.[179] In 2009 they were on its peak with 72 stores across the country.[180] Blockbuster Video Denmark sold the rights for the Blockbuster brand to the Danish telecommunications corporation TDC in 2013, excluding the 46 remaining brick and mortar stores which continued as RecycleIT A/S, diversifying in refurbishing and reselling consumer electronics in addition sale and rental of games and movies.[79][181] The original goal was to rename all the stores before July 1, 2014, when TDC would get the exclusive rights to the brand name in Denmark, but only 12 of them had been renamed at the end of June and RecycleIT A/S filed for bankruptcy the same year.[182][183] The 12 RecycleIT stores were bought by the company Blue City.[184] The new owners planned to gradually phase out game and movie sales and rental within 2016, but due to the fast changes in the market it happened almost immediately after the takeover, and seven of the stores, therefore, closed in 2015. In 2017, the five remaining ones had started to make some profit, and focus exclusively on second-hand consumer electronics[185] However, the Blockbuster On Demand service is still active in Nordic Countries, offering both unlimited streaming and 48-hour rental of films online. Several Smart TVs have the Blockbuster app pre-installed out-of-the-box, and it is available on a variety of streaming devices such as Google's Chromecast.[186] The rights to the Blockbuster brand are now in hands of Nuuday.[187] Germany Blockbuster opened 20 stores in Berlin and Munich and announced plans to open 250 more.[when?] The chain presented itself as family-friendly by not renting pornographic films. However, that decision adversely affected the profitability of the stores. Blockbuster left the German market in 1997.[188] Hong Kong In 1998, after the closure of KPS Video Express, Blockbuster saw an opportunity to enter into the Hong Kong market, and entered into negotiations with KPS's receivers Ernst & Young to buy the KPS operations. Blockbuster re-opened 15 of 38 former KPS stores by February 16, 1998, [189] and re-employed 145 former KPS staff.[190] KPS members were given special offers to join Blockbuster, but the video pre-paid coupon system was not retained. Blockbuster pulled out of the market in 2004 after high operating costs and losses to copyright infringement.[191] Ireland In March 2010, Blockbuster announced that it intended to sell all operations in Europe. The company once had an Irish subsidiary, Xtravision, which did not operate under the Blockbuster brand name. Blockbuster sold Xtravision at a loss in August 2009 to Birchhall Investments Limited. All remaining stores were closed in 2016, leaving only its online business and vending machines. In June 2021, Xtravision Xpress was placed into voluntary receivership.[192][193] Israel In the late 2000s at its peak, Blockbuster Israel had 40 branches and more than 260 automated video rentals.[194][195] In December 2011, Blockbuster closed off its last branch store, and had only 80 automated video rentals left.[195] Japan In March 1991, Fujita Den Trading (which was the master franchise owner of McDonald's in Japan) and Blockbuster Inc. entered into a joint venture to establish Japan's first Blockbuster Video stores. By October 1992, Fujita and Blockbuster opened 15 stores in the country – four of them next to McDonald's outlets and most being located in the greater Tokyo area. Unlike Blockbuster's U.S. stores, each Japanese outlet only occupied about half the floor space at 5,000 square feet due to the country's more limited available real estate.[196][197] By June 1996, 32 stores were in operation with a public aim for 150 by 1998. Blockbuster Japan faced heavy competition from Osaka-based video rental chain, Tsutaya, with its 817 outlets, but the company saw opportunity in the population having high VCR ownership levels (at around 75%), low satellite TV penetration (at around 27%), and well-ordered store layouts (unique for most local video stores).[198] However, Blockbuster's business strategy of "wholesome home entertainment" saw it refuse to stock adult entertainment, which accounted for 35% of the Japanese video market, or the extreme horror films that were also popular. All of which meant Blockbuster was unable to fit adequately into the Japanese market, and was immediately put at a disadvantage compared to competitors that had no such ethical stance. Blockbuster handed its remaining shares over to Fujita Den Trading in 1999, and exited the Japanese market.[199] Mexico In September 2015, all remaining Blockbuster retail stores (263 in total) in Mexico had been converted to "The B Store", and the floor space dedicated to video rentals reduced from 70% to 20%, the remaining space being used for general technology and electronics sales. The re-branding occurred with the owners not renewing their license with Blockbuster and the imminent expiry of the existing license.[200][201] All remaining B-stores closed by July 2016.[202] New Zealand The chain also operated for many years in New Zealand,[203] but over the years lost customers to other retailers like United Video and Video Ezy, as well as the rise of streaming services. While the store in Bend, Oregon was generally regarded as the last Blockbuster store, there was one in Dargaville, north of Auckland, that managed to stay open until finally closing at the end of January 2020.[204] Norway In December 2002 the first Blockbuster store opened in Norway, and was followed by another store some months later in 2003, both located in Oslo. The hope was to acquire an already existing video chain. When that failed, it was made an attempt to build a Norwegian blockbuster chain from scratch. But both stores closed in the spring of 2004.[205] Peru Blockbuster opened its first store in Peru in 1995, and by 2002 it had ten stores in Lima. However, in 2006, Blockbuster announced that it plans to shut down its stores in Peru due to poor revenues, which it blamed on the effect of movie piracy.[206] The last store in Peru was closed on January 3, 2007. The company had already closed down its stores in Ecuador, Portugal and Costa Rica. El Salvador followed in 2010, and Argentina in 2011.[207] United Kingdom A Blockbuster store in Moor Allerton, Leeds A "Blockbuster Express" shop in Harrogate, Yorkshire, typical of the smaller UK stores often located in established urban and suburban areas In March 1989, Blockbuster opened their first store in the United Kingdom on Walworth Road, London.[208] In February 1992, Blockbuster purchased Citivision PLC, the biggest home-video company in Britain, for $81 million (~$167 million in 2022). At the time, Citivision operated about 775 stores in Britain branded as Ritz.[197] Blockbuster UK operated trade functions in all their stores, buying and selling pre-owned DVDs, console games, and gaming accessories. Stores offered either store credit or cash for trade-ins, and would price-match with competitors. At its height in 2002, Blockbuster UK operated out of over 800 stores. In early 2013, the company had 528 locations in the United Kingdom. On January 16, 2013, Blockbuster placed its United Kingdom subsidiaries in administration, putting over 4,000 jobs at risk. Non-UK stores were unaffected by the administration, and continued to trade as normal. On February 1, 2013, a large number of Blockbuster stores in the UK were closed, and the UK business was purchased out of administration by restructuring firm Gordon Brothers Europe on March 23, 2013.[209] Blockbuster UK then traded as TS Operations, with only 264 branches retained. On October 29, 2013, Blockbuster UK announced it was to go into administration for a second time.[210] On November 14, 2013, 72 store closures were announced,[211] with another 62 made on December 5.[212] A week later, with no success in finding a buyer, it was announced by Moorfields Corporate Recovery that all remaining stores in the country would cease operation on December 16, 2013, with stock to be cleared the day before this.[213] In September 2018, to coincide with the digital release of Deadpool 2, a pop-up retail store in the style of an original 1989 Blockbuster outlet was opened for two days in Shoreditch in East London. The store gave away 1,989 copies of the film in reference to Blockbuster's entry year into the UK market." (wikipedia.org)
  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: In good, pre-owned condition. Please see photos and description.
  • Brand: Blockbuster
  • Type: Shopping Basket
  • Part & Accessory Type: Cart Advertising & Logo Plate
  • Shopping Cart Type: Standard
  • Model: 2002
  • Material: Plastic
  • Features: Stackable
  • Shopping Basket Type: Hand Basket

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