Getty Image
No list of “Things Only ’90s Kids Remember” is complete without mentioning the beloved tradition that involved heading to Blockbuster on a Friday night and roaming through the aisles of the video rental store while hunting for a movie to rent.
As you likely know by now, Blockbuster eventually found itself facing some competition after Netflix burst onto the scene in the late 1990s.
The brick-and-mortar chain had the chance to buy the startup for $50 million in 2000 but declined to do so. That turned out to be a fatal error, as the online rental service was the primary factor in the demise of a company that filed for bankruptcy in 2010 after failing to fend off the existential threat that ultimately brought it to its knees.
Blockbuster boasted more than 9,000 locations around the globe at its peak, but as things currently stand, there is a single store in existence thanks to the lone survivor in Bend, Oregon that’s still doing what it can to stay afloat in 2023.
Based on the wildly saturated nature of the current online streaming landscape, it’s hard to imagine Blockbuster would be able to make much of a mark if it attempted to make a comeback around a decade after it waved the white flag.
However, plenty of people are convinced something is in the works based on a cryptic message that recently appeared on the company’s website, as the homepage currently features the chain’s logo on top of the words “We Are Working On Rewinding Your Movie.”
According to The Washington Post, that update can actually be traced back to earlier this year, and it’s currently unclear what sparked the revamped landing page.
With that said, Dish Network still owns the rights to the corporation after acquiring its assets in a bankruptcy auction in 2011.
The company initially attempted to go head-to-head with Netflix with its own streaming platform before conceding defeat, so while there’s no telling what (if any) plans it has in the works, this could be an interesting situation to keep an eye on.