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, and cult films that are less available on streaming platforms.
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 September 2015[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.
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]
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.
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, Redboxhas 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]
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]
In 2010, the small number of remaining video stores have launched International Video Store Day, which is on the third Saturday in 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 CÃdric 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]
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.
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