Positive thinking wasn't enough to help Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment escape a mountain of unpaid bills.
The publisher of uplifting books, TV shows, movies and online video content, which also owns DVD rental company Redbox, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware court on Friday after racking up nearly $1 billion in debt.
Chicken Soup was founded in 1993 by motivational speakers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. In the years that followed, the company expanded beyond book publishing, developing a suite of ad-supported video-on-demand services, including Redbox, Crackle and Popcornflix, according to S&P Capital IQ.
The publicly traded company, based in Cos Cob, Connecticut, also operates Redbox Free Live TV, a free, ad-supported streaming service, and operates thousands of DVD rental kiosks.
Chicken Soup for the Soul owes money to more than 500 creditors, including entertainment companies Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Discovery and retailers Walgreens and Walmart. As of March, the company had debts of $970 million and assets of $414 million, according to its bankruptcy filing. In court documents, the company said its lenders were unwilling to help it refinance.
A spokesperson for Chicken Soup for the Soul declined to comment.
Chicken Soup for the Soul grew rapidly after it went public in 2017, with Ashton Kutcher among its investors, with annual revenues rising from less than $10 million to more than $294 million in 2023. In 2022, the company acquired Redbox, a dot-com survivor best known for its self-service kiosks outside pharmacies and grocery stores where customers could rent or sell DVDs.
Chicken Soup for the Soul touted the deal at the time as a way to reach consumers across media and increase sales, but the merged company has failed to turn a profit as losses piled up. The company reported revenue of about $110 million in 2023 and disclosed in a regulatory filing in March that it might not be able to continue as a going concern.
The company's stock price, which was around $50 in 2021, had fallen more than 90% over the past year and was down to 11 cents shortly before the close of trading on Monday.
—The Associated Press contributed to this report.
