I’ve never rented from a Redbox but every time I’ve walked by one of their kiosks, I always see the people at the screen about to make some very bad choices. Just the other day I saw a woman seriously considering renting the latest BLOODRAYNE film. I wanted to intervene and suggest that if she liked vampire movies, she could try LET ME IN, but I just walked on by. Turns out this woman was not alone in her poor choices.
Redbox has announced its most rented movies of 2011 and it’s a rather unfortunate list. JUST GO WITH IT, a movie that was on one of our “Worst of 2011” lists, was the top “comedy” of the year, a list that also included THE DILEMMA. Not satisfied with just being the top comedy, JUST GO WITH IT was also named the Most Rented Movie of 2011 (this is a movie with a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).
The top drama was THE TOURIST, the poorly received Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie movie that somehow beat out THE SOCIAL NETWORK and INCEPTION. The top “action” rental was THE GREEN HORNET, another pretty terrible movie, but at least I can understand the reasoning behind giving that movie a shot (being really, really high).
Even worse, Redbox gave a Lifetime Achievement Award because his films – like GROWN UPS, ZOOKEEPER, THE DILEMMA and PAUL BLART – have been aaaamong the most successful films in Redbox history. Think about that for a second.