Last month Redbox’s parent company, Chicken Soup for the Soul, announced it was going into bankruptcy. Later it switched to a chapter 7 bankruptcy, so it can shut down and sell everything off. With that move the Redbox streaming service has not worked for about a month, locking customers out of movies and TV shows they purchased through the app.
So, what will happen to all the purchased movies and TV shows people bought to stream through the Redbox app?
Sadly, right now it’s not looking good. Redbox owners have laid off most of their staff or will soon do so as it works to completely shut down.
Unless a buyer comes soon to buy what is left of Redbox, the site and service will at some point soon shut down.
If a buyer does not show, it’s very possible the movies and TV shows you purchased on Redbox will not be saved.
In the past, when streaming services shut down, they often sold their customers to a new streaming service. Vudu, for example, picked up several smaller companies’ customers when these services stopped selling movies and TV shows. This allowed Vudu to offer these customers their movies. For now, no one has stepped up to offer to buy the remains of Redbox.
So, what will happen to your Redbox purchases? Right now, we don’t know. Redbox has a few options, but at some point, it’s out of Redbox’s control. They would likely love to sell off the company, but they need a buyer. So far, no buyers have appeared.