(First, a hat tip to collegue Peter Pearl, who provided the spark for this post!) The Roanoke Times reports this morning that the locally-based movie rental chain Adventure Entertainment has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company has 28 Movie Starz video stores in the Roanoke Valley.

Just about a month ago, the nation’s largest rental chain, Blockbuster Entertainment, filed for bankruptcy. Blockbuster, like Adventure Entertainment, expects to reorganize and emerge as a leaner, less debt-ridden outfit after closing unprofitable stores and jettisoning some creditors. Will this work?

As Virginia creditors rights lawyers, we’ve been to this particular movie before. Movie Gallery (aka Hollywood Video, with 2,000 stores between the two nameplates) has been in bankruptcy twice. Both times, they filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia located about a block from our office. The first case was a reorganization, but the second turned into a full liquidation. As in all cases involving retail companies, landlords have needed help in protecting their interests, and now so will those renting to Movie Starz stores.