'This Is the End' for Blockbuster Video
The last Blockbuster rental in Hawaii says it all.
Nov. 12, 2013 -- As Blockbuster lowers the curtain, its last rental customer selected a fitting title to commemorate closing time: "This Is the End."
The last official rental was made in a Hawaii store at 11 p.m. Saturday, which was the last day to rent, according to Blockbuster's Twitter account. Two store clerks posed with the man, all three holding up their own copies of the 2013 comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.
WATCH: 'This Is the End' for Blockbuster Video
Rogen saw the company's tweet and responded with a touching moment about his history with the video chain.
DISH Network Corp., which acquired Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. in 2011, announced that it will have abandoned all the remaining 300 company-owned Blockbuster retail stores in the United States by early-January 2014.
The Blockbuster By Mail service will also be buried by mid-December, company officials said.
READ MORE: Blockbuster to Shut Down All Remaining Stores
Blockbuster took the first steps in January toward shutting down nationwide.
"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," DISH president and CEO Joseph P. Clayton said in a statement Nov. 6.
But don't be surprised if you still see Blockbuster stores operating like its business as usual.
About 50 independently owned franchised stores will keep their doors open to U.S. customers, DISH Network spokesman John Hall told ABCNews.com.
Twenty-six of these franchised locations are owned by Border Entertainment LLC, an Austin, Texas-based company, the company's president, Alan Payne, told ABCNews.com.
The company's 13 stores in Texas and 13 stores in Alaska are in the process of converting to a licensing agreement with Blockbuster, Payne said.
Despite the rise of digital distribution, Payne said the stores have survived because of "a lot of decisions over the past 20 years that put us in a different direction."
"It takes time to come to a store and you have to come twice," he said. "I think the most significant difference is we have really tried to focus on doing the things that we can do, that all of our competition cannot do."