1. What disruptive technology has threatened the bricks-and-mortar and mail-in movie rental business?
2. Does easy access to distribution channels at grocery stores for Redbox’s 22,000 vending machines indicate a high- or low-entry threat in the movie rental business? Why? Why might McDonald’s be an even better distribution channel than grocery stores?
3. Are there any economies of scale in the on-demand video rental business to serve as a barrier to the entry of Amazon?
4. Who are Netflix’s and Redbox’s suppliers? Are they in a position to appropriate much of the value in the value chain? Why or why not?
5. What factors determine the intensity of rivalry in any industry? Is the intensity of rivalry in the video rental industry high or low? Why?
6. The DVD market, both in rentals and in purchases after screening, has absolutely COLLAPSED with the advent of digital streaming. This used to be a reliable revenue stream for studios – and now it’s all but disappeared. How might we expect this to change the movies that get made, and the experience (including prices…) at the theater?

7. Imagine you own a small chain of movie theaters. How do you plan to react to the changing marketplace? What are you going to do in order to keep customers coming back, with the wealth of entertainment options available to them and the changing studio landscape? What are you going to do with prices, offerings, etc?

8. What do you think the future of studio releases and movie exhibition will look like? What trends do we see today that might chance the landscape in the next 5-10 years? How will studios, theaters and consumer react to those changes?

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