In July 2018, Walmart decided it wasn’t content to just own Vudu. It wanted to build the next Netflix. And for a few brief months, it looked like it might actually try.
The retail giant quietly tapped Mark Greenberg, former CEO of Epix and a veteran of HBO, Showtime, and Comcast, to explore a direct-to-consumer SVOD service. The concept? A budget-friendly streamer priced at $8/month aimed squarely at Middle America.
Greenberg wasn’t just a figurehead. He’d built Epix from scratch. He knew content licensing. He knew how to position a premium network. His job was to figure out what Walmart should build—and whether Vudu could power it.
Sources said Walmart was eyeing a Q4 2018 rollout. Industry watchers assumed this would become the new front for Vudu—a chance to evolve beyond transactional rentals and finally join the subscription economy.
But nothing happened.
The initiative stalled. Greenberg left. And Walmart never launched the SVOD. The reason? A mix of internal indecision, margin anxiety, and a lack of appetite to go toe-to-toe with Netflix and Amazon in a content war.
Instead, Walmart kept Vudu exactly where it was: a perfectly functional, totally uninspired digital storefront with a free ad-supported section called Movies on Us.
The Take
Walmart had a window. It had a brand. It had the right executive.
But it didn’t have the conviction. And in streaming, half-measures don’t scale.
The Mark Greenberg play could’ve changed Vudu’s trajectory—or at least given it a fighting chance. Instead, it became another unrealized footnote in Walmart’s long history of digital dabbling.
By 2024, both the SVOD dream and the Vudu brand were gone.
Epilogue: From Missed Moves to Power Plays
Walmart’s 2018 attempt to build a Netflix competitor fizzled out quietly.
But fast-forward to 2024, and the company finally made the kind of move that could reshape its role in streaming: a $2.3 billion acquisition of Vizio.
This time, Walmart didn’t try to build a content empire from scratch. It bought a connected TV footprint—19 million active devices, a FAST platform (WatchFree+), and a full-blown OS (SmartCast)—then merged it with its Walmart Connect ad network.
It didn’t need to launch a Netflix rival.
It became a rival to Roku and Amazon.
So while the SVOD-that-never-was marked a retreat from content, the Vizio deal marked Walmart’s return—with leverage, data, and distribution.
Vudu never got the backing it needed.
SmartCast did.
Funny how this ends: Walmart didn’t reinvent Vudu.
It leapfrogged it.
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