By Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (CSSE), parent company of the Redbox video rental company and streamer Crackle, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The company relayed news of the filing to employees today. CSSE has been struggling over the past year in the wake of taking on Redbox in a 2022 deal valued at $375 million.
Not helping has been the decline of physical disc rentals and the strikes constricting production pipelines meaning less releases on offer.
The Verge indicates Chicken Soup’s bankruptcy filing shows that the company owes money to multiple retailers including Walmart, Walgreens, Universal, Sony, Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Pictures.
Chicken Soup took on $325 million in debt when it acquired Redbox in 2022 and has reportedly been sued over a dozen times over unpaid bills. Altogether, the bankruptcy filing indicates the company is $970 million in debt.
At its height in 2012, Redbox had over 42,000 kiosks at more than 34,000 locations and by 2016 had 51.8% market share of the physical rental market.
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