Blockbuster

Blockbuster LLC, formerly Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc. and also known as Blockbuster Video or simply Blockbuster, is an American-based provider of home movie and video game rental services through a video rental shop, DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and cinema theater.

History
Blockbuster's early beginnings can be traced back to another company, Cook Data Services, that was founded by David Cook in 1978. The company's primary goal was to supply software services to the oil and gas industries throughout Texas, but it was not very successful. Sandy Cook, David's wife, wanted to get into the video business, and her husband would soon study the industry and future prospects. 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. When he realized the potential in video rentals, Cook abandoned the oil industry and began franchising the Blockbuster store.

The first Blockbuster store opened October 19, 1985, in Dallas, Texas, with an inventory of 8,000 VHS and 2,000 Beta tapes. Cook's experience with managing huge databases proved helpful in driving innovation within the industry. 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. Blockbuster would often custom-tailor a store's inventory to its neighborhood, based on local demographics.

In 1987, the company won a court case against Nintendo, which paved the way for video game rental.

Blockbuster expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster employed 84,300 people worldwide, including about 58,500 in the United States and about 25,800 in other countries, and had 9,094 stores in total, with more than 4,500 of these in the US.

Competition from the Netflix mail-order service, Redbox automated kiosks, and video on demandservices were major factors in Blockbuster's eventual demise. Blockbuster began to lose significant revenue during the 2000s, and in 2010, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. The following year, its remaining 1,700 stores were bought by satellite television provider Dish Network. In November 2013, the last 300 company-owned stores were closed.

In 2019, Cobain&Co, along with David Cook, bought the license from Dish and reopened Blockbuster as both a video rental store and a streaming app. They also decided to rebrand Blockbuster's logo. With more than 24,000 stores in the U.S. and 15 million users on the app, Blockbuster has gotten their feet off the ground.