Blockbuster Entertainment Corp

Blockbuster Inc. shares rose 17% after the founder of the Hollywood Video chain took a 5.7% equity stake in the world's biggest video-rental chain and expressed confidence that the Dallas company could meet its obligations. Wattles Capital Management acquired 4.84 million shares of Blockbuster, while HKW Trust, which Mark Wattles controls, bought 2 million, according to a regulatory filing Monday. Blockbuster shares, which declined 68% last year, jumped 11 cents to 76 cents.

As if crushing debt, the recession, Netflix and Redbox weren't enough, Blockbuster Inc. has a new foe: the booming box office. That's according to Jim Keyes, chief executive of the struggling but still massive DVD rental chain, who on Thursday blamed much of his company's weak performance last quarter on the growing number of people watching movies in theaters and not their living rooms.

Blockbuster Inc. will start renting movies and television shows through a new gadget that may give consumers another reason to bypass the struggling video chain's 7,500 stores. The system unveiled Tuesday relies on a small box that connects to television sets and stores video after it's downloaded over high-speed Internet connections. The player, made by San Jose-based 2Wire Inc., is based on the same concept as storage devices made by Apple Inc. and Vudu Inc.

New York's pension funds asked Home Depot Inc., Blockbuster Inc. and Par Pharmaceutical Cos. to let shareholders vote on whether they approved of top executives' pay packages. The formal proposal submitted by New York City Employees' Retirement System trustees, including City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, would allow investors in the three companies to cast a vote of no confidence in management.

Movie rental company Blockbuster Inc. said Wednesday that it had reached a year-end goal of 2 million online subscribers, sending its shares up 6.6%. The Dallas-based company said it added more than 500,000 subscribers since the end of the third quarter. "These numbers are pretty surprising. Blockbuster not only made the numbers they guided to, but exceeded them and did it in a pretty dramatic fashion," Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter said.

Movie-rental company Blockbuster Inc. said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter earnings fell 28%, largely because of costs to launch and promote its online rental business. The company also said it was trying to resolve a dispute with Chief Executive John Antioco over his 2006 bonus. The board on Jan. 25 awarded Antioco a bonus of $2.28 million, on top of his 2006 salary and deferred compensation of about $2.5 million.

Blockbuster Inc. is in advanced talks to buy Movielink as a way to speed its entry into the online movie-downloading business, people familiar with the situation said. Movie-rental giant Blockbuster would pay less than $50 million in cash and stock for Movielink, which is owned by five major studios, said one of those who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was not final. The companies declined to comment. Movielink has offered movie downloads since 2002.

In a move that could inspire other companies to deflate their executive golden parachutes, video rental giant Blockbuster Inc. is sending its beleaguered leader off with a slimmed-down exit package. Chief Executive John Antioco, 62, will leave the Dallas-based company by the end of the year, having received $8 million in bonus and severance by then. That's 62% less than Antioco would have gotten had the board not slashed his 2006 bonus and negotiated a smaller exit sum.

Blockbuster Inc. has been bloodied in the online DVD rental battle with industry leader Netflix Inc. The video store giant Wednesday disappointed Wall Street with a first-quarter loss of $46.4 million, or 26 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $1.9 million, or 3 cents. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News expected a loss of 16 cents a share. Sales rose 5.4% to $1.5 billion. Blockbuster's red ink came as the company doubled spending on its Internet site.

Blockbuster Inc. is offering lower-priced plans for online movie rentals as it competes with Netflix Inc. in a market that some analysts believe could grow more than 40% this year. Dallas-based Blockbuster said Tuesday that it would cut prices $1 a month for customers who order movies only online and not at stores. Analysts said Netflix could be forced to drop prices, which would reduce its profit. Shares of Netflix tumbled $1.85, or 8.4%, to $20.