A blue and yellow box filled with movies in custom jackets — and sometimes popcorn — stands outside a home in East Kildonan. The nostalgic Blockbuster logo glows faintly in the daylight.
Friday marked the first day of A. J. Ongenae’s franchise — the first Free Blockbuster to pop up in Winnipeg. He saw the idea on YouTube and thought it was cool, so decided to make his own.
“I just kind of wanted to make it,” Ongenae, 39, said outside his home at 344 Kimberly Ave. “Now I just hope people use it for, you know, if they want to have a movie night, make it a Blockbuster night.”
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“It’s just nice to give back sometimes,” said AJ Ongenae. The Winnipegger said he hopes people will return movies to his free library-style Blockbuster box, or donate their own.
The concept mimics that of little free libraries, a movement that promotes neighbourhood book exchanges through public bookcases. Users take a book and leave one in its place or return it after reading.
Ongenae made all the pieces he needed for the box before assembling it and painting it in his living room. He filled it with dozens of movies and had to restock it on Monday with about 50 more films.
“A lot of the boxes that I saw were just old newspaper boxes and they repurposed them and none of them had lights and logos and stuff,” he said. “There were some cool ones, but not a lot and so I just wanted to make the best one I could make.”
Ongenae admits he’s not the biggest movie buff but still carries his Blockbuster card in his wallet.
“I’m kind of at the age where I like to watch the movies that I know,” Ongenae said. “I watch the same movies once a year, every year.”
Most of the movies are ones he’s collected over the years or found at garage sales. Some visitors have left their own DVDs in the box to add to the mix of comedy, romance and action flicks.
He added a box of microwave popcorn to the mix — and that was gone within two days.
Ongenae has noticed his franchise gain traction on the East Kildonan community Facebook group and says it’s been busy in person, too.
Free Blockbuster was started in 2019 by Brain Morrison, a Los Angeles producer and former Blockbuster employee.
The Winnipeg location joins nine others in Canada, found in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. There are more than 160 boxes across the United States and one each in Mexico, Australia and England, the organization’s website says.
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AJ Ongenae started offering movies to his neighbourhood community via a Blockbuster box he set up last week in front of his Kimberly Avenue home.
Ongenae hopes users return the movies or donate their own for others to enjoy. He also says it’s “inevitable” people will keep them as souvenirs and says that’s fine, too.
He’ waiting to see how the box holds up once winter hits, but hopes to continue it after summer is over. He also hopes to see others set up in different parts of the city.
“It’s just nice to give back sometimes,” he said.
Blockbuster was a home video rental chain that started in 1985. It expanded to include video game rentals and DVD-by-mail services, but struggled as streaming became more accessible and competitors such as Netflix joined the scene.
At its peak, the American company operated 9,094 stores worldwide. Blockbuster sales continued to decline and led to bankruptcy; the company announced the closure of its 253 Canadian stores on Aug. 31, 2011. The remaining stores were closed by 2014.
jura.mcilraith@freepress.mb.ca