The Iconic Movie Rental Service We Didn't Realize McDonald's Invented

The super-giant corporations in America are, of course, massive — in terms of their footprint, earnings, and power. But the entire U.S. market is also small, in the sense of conglomerates, with many of the biggest companies owning or partially owning others via parent companies and subsidiaries.

A perfect example that shook us to our core to learn of? McDonald's, perhaps the best known and loved American fast food chain of all, was the company behind Redbox — those once-omnipresent DVD and Blu-ray vending machines found outside of drugstores and by the grocery checkout. Who knew! Probably not many. Unless you happened to be in the in-crowd or Googled "who owns Redbox?" there were no obvious signs on the red kiosks, which at one time numbered more than 35,000. 

One tell, perhaps, was in addition to being in supermarkets and outside drugstores, Redbox kiosks were often inside McDonald's restaurants, making entertainment just one more secret menu item of McDonald's, so to speak. First founded in 2002 by McDonald's Ventures, LLC, the origin story of Redbox is as colorful as the bright red kiosks. Mickey D's first launched the venture with the goal of offering "convenience store" vending machines with snacks and household basics — more of an obvious fit for the chain than rental movies. But by 2004, they company had pivoted to focusing on DVDs. Offering movies on demand for a mere buck, Redbox became a cultural staple for its heyday, primarily from the early 2000s to the 2010s

In our technological world, innovation moves fast. From the progression from cassette tapes to CDs to digital streaming, to the journey of renting VHSs at your local Blockbuster to the advent of Netflix and then Redbox, change comes at a breakneck speed. So if you're wondering, no, Redbox is a thing no longer, sadly. 

In 2005, just one year after making the move from a "convenience store" focus to strictly DVDs, McDonald's had already sold off about half the company to Coinstar, which would eventually acquire all of it from McDonald's by 2009. If you're thinking that letting go of their claim to the rental service was one of the worst mistakes McDonald's ever made, it's likely just the opposite. McDonald's was able to get out of the DVD rental business long before things went south. 

The wheels started falling off the once-wildly-successful rental service around 2016, with the rise of streaming, and the company could never truly recover. By the end, McDonald's was no longer the owner, as Redbox had been sold off and split, and was eventually acquired by its final owner, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, who unfortunately filed for bankruptcy in 2024.

So if you're looking, don't expect to spot the once-iconic red kiosks anywhere these days — other than maybe in the possession of collectors. The once McDonald's-owned DVD rental business is officially kaput, leaving us one more relic of times gone by to be nostalgic for.