Who is Behind Hint of Blockbuster Return: DISH or New Investors

News reports abounded about the possibility of a reopening or re-emerging of Blockbuster. Statistics were cited but no conclusions were made.  The trigger was the teaser on the website -revealed March 24th "We are working on rewinding your movie" a nod to the ubiquitous reminder present on the movies rented, to rewind before returning. The question begs to be answered: Who was scrolling through Blockbuster's website to know it had changed on this day?  Or was the discovery primed by Blockbuster owner Dish?

While the new website cover page has no tabs to link to other pages those pages are still there - obtained by going to the help page - https://blockbuster.com/helppage.html. While the last "news" item was the announcement of closing stores in 2014. 

The only location remaining is in Bend, Oregon, but it is used for events not as much a retail outlet, since there is no support from Blockbuster. There were 84,000 employees in 2004 at the height of Blockbuster's existence and 9,000 locations.  They had 25,000 shortly before DISH bought them for $320 million.  Prior to that Viacom owned them from 1994 -2004.  It was David Cook of Dallas who established the company in 1985.

Blockbuster stock peaked at $10.65 on April 14, 2005 and is currently listed as penny-stock BB Liquidating Stock (OTC:BLIAQ)

What did DISH buy?  The licensing rights  to a library of thousands of movies which were available through the standalone app "BLOCKBUSTER ON DEMAND", now defunct.  ROKU announced  Blockbuster On Demand launches on Roku., in 2013.

The twitter account is kept current - with this fun tweet from March 15th

"New business idea: We're going to come back as a bank and use VHS and DVDs as currency. Time to go visit your mom."

 And this teaser from January 23rd

"Our 2023 New Year's resolution was to reopen Blockbuster but it seemed like a lot of work so we quit.

Should we start going to the gym instead?"

 A look at WHOis.com identifies Dish as the owner of the Blockbuster.com domain

 Meanwhile in Dec 2021 a group of investors publicized their interest in purchasing the company/name/inventory:

"The organization envisions Blockbuster running as a decentralized film-streaming service."

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