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Beleaguered rental chain Blockbuster's financial woes have gone from bad to really bad, with the LA Times reporting that the company will next month file for bankruptcy.

According to "people who have been briefed on the matter", Blockbuster has already begun meeting with Hollywood's big movie studios to discuss the move, which its hoped will help them restructure $1 billion in debt and allow the company to get out of leases on around 500 of its stores.

In total, between 500-800 stores (of a total of 3,425) will be shuttered as part of the move, to go with the 1000 closed last year.

It's hoped that filing for bankruptcy will allow the company to continue to expand into new markets like automated kiosks and online streaming, but even if just under 3000 stores survive this mess, it sounds like the days of the bricks-and-mortar Blockbuster store could soon be coming to an end.[/p]
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video rental stores are pretty much going obsolete anyway

 

Block Buster went away very quickly in Aus lasted 3 months then Video Ezy came in

in my town it was
blockbuster - villagevideos - video ezy
one after another they kept on buying the land

 

I worked for blockbuster for 10 years. 5 as a general manager. I left a little over a year ago. To be honest im surprised that they have not completely folded yet. The store i was running was barely breaking even and that was only because we kept renegotiating the rent with the landlord. Glad i got out when i did.

 

I can not say I will shed a tear for this one. Every time I walk into the place I get the same feeling that I used to get when I walked into PC world (for the USians in the audience think the worst best buy you ever went into/heard about/imagined and then imagine that on a bad day).

I reckon if they went the pile it high, sell/rent it cheap route rather than the cavernous open plan nonsense they have now and stopped trying to rip people off on hardware and snacks it might help- when I am considering walking into a co-op or spar to not get ripped off you know you are doing something wrong.

 

I'm not to suprised about this in the city I live in we have 3 main Video Rental Stores here is the order on how big they are:

Video Ezy ( Giant)

Network Video (Bound to go bankrupt)

Blockbuster( An old crappy store which no-one visits seeing everything they have availible is bad or already been played or seen 1 million times before therefore destroying every piece of nostalgia you once had)

And then theres simple things like Netflix and Bigpond which allow you to order your games, dvds etc. online via the push of a button.

 

there's still a BB here but i don't go to it cos they don't have many BRD or fail to get the new releases. that's the only time i go to a rental store now to rent BRD.

 

i'm surpised my blockbuster is still around where i am living.

 

blockbuster lol i aint been to one of them in about 7 years... rental is basically dead i havent ever rented a video game or movie from anyware in almost 10 years

 

Have to say I agree with you there FAST. Even here in melbourne, I always got the same feeling walking into blockbuster.
Not that other stores don't try to capitalize on snacks and all, but the feeling from BB is just.. uncomfortable. And the prices were way steep!!!

Also, last time I checked there was still a blockbuster about 5 minutes away from me. Pretty big one at that.