It was just last week that Dish Network announced they would shutter operations at it’s Blockbuster rental stores, at least those still remaining. Well just as fast as the news came out, the world found out that this past Saturday would be the last day that you could rent movies from your neighborhood Blockbuster store. Blockbuster will spend the remaining next couple of months to sell off rental inventory and liquidate their stores.
With Saturday being the last day to rent movies time zones dictated that stores in Hawaii would be the last ones to rent.
The Verge reports that at 11pm on Saturday evening the last rental was made at a Hawaiian location.
On Monday morning Blockbuster tweeted out a picture of the last Blockbuster rental customer and the movie that he selected to rent. Fittingly he chose “This is the end” starring Seth Rogan. The Verge is still waiting to hear how it was the customer chose that movie for the monumental occasion.
At one point in time Blockbuster was the epicenter for in home family entertainment. The company began with locations in Dallas Texas and went through a number of acquisitions making it the largest video rental company in the world. It’s largest competitor, Hollywood Video, ceased operations in May of 2010.
At it’s peak Blockbuster had over 4,000 stores. In the spring of 2011 the company thought it was safe when it was acquired at auction by Dish Network. Dish planned on keeping 500 stores open. In August of this year Dish announced they would close 300 stores and last week they announced they would close the remaining US stores as well as it’s rent by mail service. The only thing that remains is Blockbuster On Demand which is a movie service provided to Dish customers.