Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (CSSE), based in Greenwich and originally founded to publish the books containing inspirational quotes and essays recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its Redbox division.
Redbox, which ran automated DVD rental kiosks at roughly 34,000 locations across the country, was acquired by CSSE in 2022. CSSE took on around $360 million in debt to do so. The service was popular in areas with poor internet access which precluded the use of streaming services, but the cost of licensing films from movie studios for distribution throughout the kiosk network was in the millions of dollars per studio.
The company’s stock presently sits at about 12 cents per share, down from more than $40 per share in 2021 before the Redbox acquisition.
The book publishing aspect of the business is expected to be unaffected. The implications for CSSE’s other recent ventures, which includes the streaming service Crackle and a pet food brand carried at Big Y stores in Connecticut, are unclear.
