The former Inverell man, who owns That’s Rentertainment in Runaway Bay, will see his premises on the big screen when the film premieres about mid-2019.

In the meantime, it’s business as usual – but with a twist, as the industry continues to be overtaken by film and TV streaming.

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The Last Video Store is pitched as “a love letter to the dying era of video store rentals”, in which a shop owner installs security cameras after a robbery, and watches an unexpected romance bloom between his two young employees. 

Mr Hooklyn said Last Video Productions had contacted him last year about using his shop as their set, but he couldn’t say yes because of his franchise rules.

That changed when he rebranded a few months later.

“They’d started to buy props and stuff to do it in a studio, but they really wanted to film it in a store,” he said.

“Filming went for three weeks from the end of July … they shot from when we closed at 8pm to the early hours, about 5 o’clock in the morning.”

Mr Hooklyn said he was “a bit camera-shy”, but one of his two part-time employees had a small part.

He said the number of DVD rental stores on the Gold Coast could now be counted on one hand.

“It’s not like it used to be; there’s this streaming and downloading now, it’s so easy: smart TVs and Chromecasting and whatever you call it,” he said.

“I’m still going, but I’m not making any money.”

He said he’d diversified into offering rent-to-buy on TVs and whitegoods, however, which was helping him “to stay afloat”.

But his heart was still in the video shop business.

He said he loved the interaction with people, and the shop had also been a family business, with his four youngest children having worked there at various times.

“I do like it; there’s nothing else I can think I really want to do, or feel like I could do,” he said.

“Not only that, but it’s pure pressure from my customers. They’re always saying, ‘You’re not going to close, are you?’

“I feel more like a community service than a business: it’s more that the customers want me to stay …

“I’ll stay open as long as I can.”