As Blockbusters Close, Indie Rental Stores Scramble for Business

“The family-friendly-ness of Blockbuster was an important part of its identity; not just the lack of adult video, but the fact that the stores were clean and brightly-lit, with wider aisles,” writes Josh Greenberg, director of the Allen P. Sloan Foundation’s digital information technology program and author of “From Betamax to Blockbuster,” in an email. “At the same time, that meant a homogenization that meant less access to less-mainstream videos, which left a clear market niche for the ‘indies’.”

The independent stores may carry the latest big-budget superhero epics, but they also try to find ways to make themselves indispensable. McNevin, whose store is down the street from a movie theater that he says “very much caters to the arthouse crowd,” says he makes a point of knowing and catering to that audience.

“Our biggest section is probably our BBC and British stuff,” says McNevin. “Again there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s not easy to come by.”

His store carries titles Netflix and other streaming services don’t offer because “people don’t see the financial sense in putting it online,” McNevin says.

In that sense, many proprietors see their stores as much more than retail outlets. Independent film stores are “community cultural outposts in neighborhoods,” says Milos Stehlik, director of Facets, a nonprofit media arts organization in Chicago that makes money in part by renting out movies. He points out that Quentin Tarantino famously got his film education as a video store clerk.

Movie rental stores “serve an archival purpose not too different from libraries,” he says.

McNevin also compares his store to a library, but with one caveat. “We try to be like the library, but it seems like we’re moving more into being a museum, which is not what we want.”

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