The streaming wars are getting quite serious now! HBO Max’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against Paramount Global accusing it of reneging on parts of the 2019 $500 million licensing deal for the streaming rights to episodes of the Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s South Park series. The suit, which was filed Friday in New York state Supreme Court and stated that Paramount has breached the contract by taking the specials and other content to its own Paramount+ platform at the expense of Warner/HBO.
The lawsuit alleges that when HBO Max bid on the South Park streaming rights, it got assurance that there would be three new seasons of 10 episodes each. However, according to the suit only two episodes were delivered for the first of those seasons and six for the second. The third season will also have only six episodes—which makes a total of 14 episodes across all three seasons. The suit also notes that the new episodes are more valuable than the old ones, so HBO Max overpaid for the library.
In 2021, MTV (a Paramount subsidiary) paid $900 million for exclusive South Park content that would run on Paramount+. Under the deal, Paramount + would receive 14 “made for streaming” movies. Four of these projects — South Park: Post Covid, South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid, South Park The Streaming Wars Part 1, and South Park The Streaming Wars Part 2 have already aired on Paramount+.
Paramount denied the allegations and accused Warner Bros. Discovery of failing to pay the license fees that it owes under the agreement. “We believe these claims are without merit and look forward to demonstrating so through the legal process,” a Paramount Global spokesperson told Variety. “We also note that Paramount continues to adhere to the parties’ contract by delivering new South Park episodes to HBO Max, despite the fact that Warner Bros. Discovery has failed and refused to pay license fees that it owes to Paramount for episodes that have already been delivered, and which HBO Max continues to stream.
Stone and Parker’s influential show South Park first premiered on Comedy Central in August of 1997. To date, 321 episodes of the series have been broadcast. The show’s 26th season premiered on Feb. 8th. It has received five Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award. The theatrical feature South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was released by Paramount in June 1999.
Variety was first to report on this lawsuit on Friday morning.
Sources: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline.
