Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Paramount Global on Friday over the streaming rights to the Comedy Central animated series "South Park."
WBD claims that Paramount has breached a $500 million deal with HBO Max for exclusive rights to the series by producing a series of specials for Paramount+.
- All episodes of "South Park" that air on cable television stream on HBO Max; the original 2019 deal included 23 current seasons, plus three new ones to be created over the next few years.
- In 2020, "South Park" production was temporarily halted due to the pandemic.
- Now, WBD claims that most of South Park Digital Studios' work is dedicated to producing new content for Paramount+.
- While 30 new "South Park" episodes across three seasons were to be created for Comedy Central and HBO Max, only 14 have been delivered to date.
- Paramount called the claims "without merit" and noted that WBD failed to pay license fees that it owes to Paramount for the delivered episodes.
- The lawsuit also claims that "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone violated their own contracts in August 2021 when they signed a separate deal with Paramount subsidiary MTV.
