Oh, no! Blockbuster video might declare bankruptcy! Where will I rent my NC-17 movies edited down to R, or rent a terrible collection of foreign films, or hardly any films made after the 1980s? Netflix style rentals are eventually the wave of the future (or the rentals from $1 vending machines like I do) and Blockbuster telegraphed this with their changing of their own Netflix copycat service (making the wait between movies longer)

Actually, this might be a problem. If Blockbuster starts slowing down, then all the direct to DVD movies that make most of their profit off of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video presales will be in big trouble! The small budget video market has changed a lot in the past decade, and with this it may morph into something unrecognizable! We might see less low budget films on rental shelves, limiting potential viewership of those titles. This will probably cause an increase in oversea sales (but at cheaper prices due to desperation) and also more low budget fare on streaming sites, or even “buy this DVD off a website (or a download) for a small fee” type deals. As much as I hate Blockbuster, they do allow for a fair bit of terrible films to make enough money to keep making more terrible films. And that loss will be a loss heartfelt here at TarsTarkas.NET and all cult movie sites. Imagine if The Asylum was unable to make enough money off of The Terminators or Transmorphers 2 and had to stop doing mockbusters? The world would be devastated! Maybe Blockbuster can do something to weather this storm and survive, but their current way of making money is limited. I don’t think streaming will become mainstream for a long time, so I really don’t know what would happen if Blockbuster were to go under.