Blockbuster History

The first Blockbuster store opened on October 19, 1985 in Dallas, Texas, USA. The founder of the company was the Dutch-born American entrepreneur Wayne Huizenga.

By 1987 the company had already 17 stores in the United States.
The expansion of the Blockbuster chain started in 1989, opening its first store outside the United States in London, England, following this with the opening of 12 branches in Canada in 1990.

In 1992 he opened the first stores in Australia, Chile, Spain and Venezuela.

In 1993 the company opened its store number 3000 in New York.
The company was acquired in 1994 by Viacom Inc. for $ 8.4 trillion.
In 1995 opened new branches in Italy, Argentina and New Zealand.


In 1996, the Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation changed its name to Blockbuster Inc., and then called Blockbuster Video stores, Blockbuster became one, but the stores earlier this year retained its old name.


For 1998 already had operations in Peru, Thailand, Colombia, Portugal, Brazil, Panama, El Salvador, Uruguay, Taiwan and Denmark.

In 2002, Blockbuster acquired Movie Trading Company, a company based in Dallas, Texas dedicated to buy, sell and promote films and video games. In that year the company acquired Gamestation, a British chain of computer stores and video game consoles with 64 branches.

In 2004, Blockbuster introduced the concept of subscription via internet known as Blockbuster Online, also home to 450 stores in the U.S. and in foreign the concept of store-in-store (shop inside another) with its Game Rush, dedicated to renting and selling video game specialist.

Blockbuster currently present in 24 countries worldwide and employs over 128,000 people. But unfortunately, the lack of adaptation to new technologies, and the high costs of local staff and Rent, made them lose a lot of market share for small neighborhood video stores and 24 hour rental machines. Piracy quite contrary to what was said at that time represented only 10% of their losses, the rest was due to mismanagement and lack of adaptation to the European market. All this led to close all its stores in Spain in March 2006.

  On September 23, 2010, Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to the difficult loss of $ 900 million in debt, and strong competition from Red Box, Netflix and video on demand, movie piracy decreases Internet and the street had increased in recent years. Blockbuster said it would keep its 3,300 stores in operation at the moment. However, it is expected to close over 900 stores closed in late 2010. Movie Gallery / Hollywood Video filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year of closure and liquidation of Blockbuster.