[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-pornography 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.

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

Blockbuster representatives in Portugal blamed internet piracy and the lack of government response to it as the key factors to the company's failure in the country.

[82] In 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.

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 (~$1.29 billion in 2024) in debt, and strong competition from Netflix, Redbox, and video on-demand services.

[114][115][116] 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.

[127] 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.

[128][129] 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.

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!

[136][137] 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.

They put focus entirely on what was new rather than on discovering film history ...[135]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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

[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.

[224] Blockbuster UK aired a monthly BB Insider online video show from May 2010 to January 2011[225] and launched an iPhone App in September 2010.

It starred the voices of James Woods and Jim Belushi as Carl and Ray, a rabbit and a guinea pig in a pet shop located across the road from a Blockbuster store.

The program sparked investigations and charges of misrepresentation in 48 states and the District of Columbia: state attorneys general including Bill Lockyer of California, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Eliot Spitzer of New York argued that customers were being automatically charged the full purchase price of late rentals and a restocking fee for rentals returned after 30 days.