Oh, my God! They … are going to release 14 new South Park films.
MTV Entertainment Studios has inked South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to a new deal that will run through 2027, including 14 new movies made exclusively for Paramount+, two every year, beginning this year. It will also see the flagship South Park series renewed through season 30 (2022 will see the show launch its 25th season). The deal is worth $900 million.
According to entertainment chief Chris McCarthy, the company is also working with Parker and Stone on new original content. “Franchising marquee content like South Park and developing new IP with tremendous talent like Matt and Trey, is at the heart of our strategy to continue growing Paramount+,” McCarthy said in a statement.
The news broke Thursday morning as ViacomCBS released its second-quarter earnings report.
The new films will premiere exclusively on Paramount+, a move that may vex some fans because the entire Comedy Central show’s library is on HBO Max, as is the 1999 film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. The new movies appear to be a way to get South Park programming on ViacomCBS’ own streaming service after cutting the HBO Max deal in 2019.
A source tells The Hollywood Reporter that Parker and Stone think of the two initial films as one big story broken into halves.
For the most part, the long-running cartoon created by Parker and Stone has been on hiatus due to the pandemic, but the duo did manage to create a pair of hourlong specials during that time. South Park Studios has been closed for more than a year, so it stands to reason the upcoming films, like the hourlong specials, were produced remotely from the crew’s homes.
“Comedy Central has been our home for 25 years and we’re really happy that they’ve made a commitment to us for the next 75 years,” said Parker and Stone in a statement. “When we came to ViacomCBS with a different way to produce the show during the pandemic, Chris (McCarthy), Nina (Diaz), Keyes (Hill-Edgar) and Tanya (Giles) were immediately supportive and enabled us to try something new that turned out to be really well received. We can’t wait to get back to doing traditional South Park episodes but now we can also try out new formats. It’s great to have partners who will always take a chance with us.”
Parker and Stone also recently made headlines when they announced they were trying to buy Casa Bonita, the Lakewood, Colorado, restaurant that was featured on their show in a classic episode. “We are absolutely trying to buy it,” Parker said. “We are going to do everything we can. We want to make it right and make it amazing.”
South Park premiered on Comedy Central on Aug. 13, 1997.