History

Blockbuster began in Dallas, Texas when it opened its first store on October 19, 1985. The founder of the company was 29-year-old David P. Cook. Cook grew the business and brought it public before handing the reins to CEO Joe Mitchell, who quickly grew it into a multi-billion dollar corporation. The company became a part of Viacom Inc. in 1994 at a price of $8.4 billion. During the 1990s Blockbuster bought out their major UK rival Ritz Video and changed the name of all the stores to their own, which made them the number one video rental store in the country by a wide margin.
In 1996, the Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation (as it was then known) was renamed Blockbuster, Inc. and the retail stores, Blockbuster. Older stores have not changed.
In 2002, Blockbuster acquired Movie Trading Company, a Dallas chain that buys, sells, and trades movies and games, to study potential business models for DVD and game trading. Also that year, they acquired Gamestation, a 64 store UK computer and console games retailer chain.
Blockbuster separated from Viacom in 2004 and launched Game Pass nationwide. Online DVD subscription was introduced on Blockbuster.com (aka Blockbuster Online). Blockbuster also rolled out its Game Rush store-in-store concept to approximately 450 domestic company-operated stores. Blockbuster began game and DVD trading in select US stores too. Overall, Blockbuster has lost significant amounts of money in recent years: $1.6 billion in 2002, almost $1.0 billion in 2003, and $1.2 billion in 2004.
As of February 2006, the company had a market value of under $500 million.
On July 2, 2007, the company named James W. Keyes (former president and CEO of 7-Eleven) as the new chairman and CEO. Keyes had worked at the convenience store chain for 21 years ubtil 2005, when it was sold to Seven & I Holdings Co. He replaced John F. Antioco who had been leading Blockbuster since 1997. Additionally, Blockbuster Inc. lifted the ban on using debit cards to secure rentals of movies and games in excess of the per-visit check out limit. Customers who were once required to use a major credit card are now free to use their debit card.