Crackle, Popcornflix, Redbox to Shut Down as Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Prepares for Liquidation
CSSE filed for Chapter 11 protections on June 28, and will see more than 1,000 employees walk away unpaid.
The sad chapter of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment’s bankruptcy proceedings is coming to an abrupt end. The company first filed for Chapter 11 protections in late June, but it’s apparently ready to throw in the sponge. CSSE has received approval to shift its Chapter 11 case into a Chapter 7 liquidation proceeding, meaning that the end has come for thousands of Redbox disc rental kiosks, as well as the company’s streaming services.
Key Details:
- CSSE operated Redbox, Crackle, Popcornflix, and other streaming services.
- The company first acquired Redbox in a $375 million deal in 2022.
- Unless another company offers to purchase its streaming assets, CSSE’s platforms will shut down in the coming months.
CSSE is a subsidiary of Chicken Soup for the Soul LLC, which is responsible for publishing the popular series of self-help books. It operated several streaming services, including Crackle, Redbox, Popcornflix, FrightPix, and others, most of which were available as free, ad-supported platforms.
The liquidation means that these streamers will be shut down in the coming months unless another company swoops in to purchase their assets. That seems unlikely as all of the movies and TV shows available on these platforms are easily licensed from their respective owners, and the Redbox branding that consumers grew to think of as the next evolution of physical media is now practically as obsolete as Blockbuster.
The liquidation of assets means that Redbox’s ubiquitous movie rental kiosks will disappear from grocery stores and gas stations, and leaves more than 1,000 CSSE employees wondering how to make ends meet, as they likely won’t be paid for their last month of work at the company.
The shutdown won’t just affect streaming platforms owned by CSSE. The company also licensed its content to other streamers, and that content now stands a good chance of disappearing as well. For example, CSSE entered into a deal with Fuel TV earlier this year to allow the Fuel TV+ platform to distribute some sports content owned by CSSE. The liquidation of CSSE’s assets means that Fuel TV+ content is now at risk.
Redbox was first purchased by CSSE in a deal worth around $375 million in August 2022. Ever since, the company has struggled with how to marry its physical disc rental purchase with its various streaming assets, and now those struggles have come home to roost.
A market correction of this nature has been looming for the streaming industry for some time. The market simply won’t support as many streaming services as it now carries, especially services that struggle to differentiate themselves from similar platforms. It’s likely that not enough customers saw extra incentive to watch a free show or movie on Redbox or Crackle as opposed to Tubi or Pluto TV, which carry many of the same free streaming channels and which are more closely associated with relevant and popular TV brands.
That doesn’t provide much comfort to the CSSE employees who will go unpaid for a month of work. But it could presage the future of some other streaming services, as the market begins to consolidate and sort out which platforms will survive in the long term.
Redbox
Redbox was a free ad-supported video streaming service with dozens of live streaming channels and on demand movies. Users could also rent or buy movies through the platform. The service shut down in 2024.