Data notes (9)
Data notes
Editorial: the years: We date the start to 2002, the year Redbox’s own history gives for the concept and the first 12 kiosks.1 An Associated Press report in 2006 said McDonald’s “came up with the idea in 2003”, and the first large test was in Denver in 2004.32 We set the end at 2024, when the last owner’s bankruptcy was converted to a liquidation on July 10.26 The tier is dead because we found no one using the name afterwards; see “Unknown” below. The headquarters, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, is as given by the Associated Press in 2006.3
Derived: Coinstar’s total outlay of $199.5M is $20.0M + $12.0M + $5.1M + $162.4M.457 The 24% fall in rentals from 2013 to 2015 is (775.7 − 587.6) ÷ 775.7; on the FY2015 report’s restated 2013 figure of 772.9 million it is also 24%.1113 The 85% fall in revenue is 1 − 288.5 ÷ 1,974.5, which compares the Redbox segment of 2013 with the whole of Redbox Entertainment Inc. in 2021.1117 44,000 ÷ 9,094 = 4.8.1136 Nineteen months is March 14, 2013 to October 20, 2014, and twelve days is June 28 to July 10, 2024.111226 The declines of 36% and 47% in 2020 and 2021 are the report’s own percentages, rounded.17
Basis changes in the filings: The 2008 kiosk count and revenue are for Coinstar’s DVD services segment, which included the DVDXpress chain.6 Revenue for 2009 was first reported as part of that segment and is shown here as the Redbox segment figure in the FY2011 10-K.9 The FY2015 10-K restated 2013 and 2014 to exclude Canada: on that basis 2013 revenue was $1,967.7M and year-end kiosks were 42,900, against $1,974.5M and 44,000 as first reported, which are the figures we use for the peak.1113 Kiosk counts for 2012 and 2013 exclude machines acquired from NCR that had not yet been replaced.11 Figures for 2019–2021 are for Redbox Entertainment Inc. as a whole.17 The homepage sparkline uses year-end kiosks for 2008–2013, 2015, 2021 and 2023 and ends at zero for the shutdown; it mixes these sources.
Estimates and approximations: The 2022 and 2023 kiosk counts (about 32,000 and about 27,800) are the round figures in the owner’s annual reports, filed in March 2023 and April 2024, not audited year-end counts.2122 The 36,000 at the merger and 27,000 at the filing are from the Associated Press’s reading of the bankruptcy petition and from the first-quarter report.2523 The 24,000 kiosks and 1,033 employees at the conversion are Variety’s figures.26 Walgreens’ $184,000 a month and the $500 removal cost are from a trade report of a court filing we did not read ourselves.31 The $100M for the litigation rights is a minimum under an agreement in principle, not a completed sale.34
Conflicts between sources: The Chapter 11 petition is dated June 28, 2024 by the Associated Press and Variety and June 29 in a CVS court filing quoted by Lowpass; we use June 28.252629 The 2022 deal is valued at $370M by Variety and at about $375M by Deadline and The Desk; the debt taken on is given as $359.9M in the buyer’s annual report and as about $325M or $360M in press reports. We use the annual report.2226333027 Variety’s article twice gives 2020 as the year of the acquisition; the filings show August 11, 2022.20 Press reports give peak kiosk counts of 34,000 to 43,000; the filings give about 44,000 at the end of 2013.272611
Unverified: That HPS Investment Partners itself took ownership of the Redbox and Crackle trademarks at or after the April 2025 sale is stated on Wikipedia without a source we could open, and is unverified. The judge’s remarks at the July 10, 2024 hearing are quoted from Variety, which credits The Wall Street Journal; we did not read the Journal’s report or a transcript.26 The description of the seller in 2009 as McDonald’s is from Redbox’s fact sheet; the filing names GetAMovie Inc. and does not say who owned it.17 The fact sheet’s claim of more than one billion rentals is the company’s.1
Unknown: Kiosk counts, revenue and debt for 2016–2018, when Redbox was privately held. Who bought the Redbox trademarks, and for how much. How many kiosks were removed, scrapped or left running. What creditors and employees will recover. We could not load redbox.com from our network when we tried on October 8, 2026 and could not reach the Internet Archive for a recent capture, so we make no statement about what the domain shows today.
General knowledge: Chapter 11 is the reorganisation chapter of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and Chapter 7 the liquidation chapter. A blank-cheque company, or SPAC, is a listed shell formed to merge with a private business. The Redbox Bowl was a college football bowl game sponsored by the company. Crackle is a free, advertising-supported streaming service.
Images: There are no screenshots of redbox.com on this page because the Internet Archive was refusing our requests when it was written. Photographs are from Wikimedia Commons under the licences given in the captions and gallery credits.38 Drawings are original illustrations, not official assets. The accent red is our approximation of the kiosk colour, matched by eye to the photographs.