Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is suing Paramount International, saying its competitor aired new episodes of the favored animated comedy sequence “South Park” after Warner paid for unique rights.
Warner says it signed a contract in 2019 paying greater than $500 million for the rights to current and new episodes of the irreverent present, in accordance with a lawsuit filed Friday in New York State Supreme Courtroom.
HBO Max, Warner’s streaming platform, was scheduled to obtain the primary episodes of a brand new “South Park” season in 2020. However the firm was knowledgeable the pandemic halted manufacturing, the lawsuit says.
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Despite Warner’s unique rights to the present till 2025, the corporate alleges South Park Digital Studios, which produces the exhibits and is known as as a defendant within the lawsuit, provided two pandemic-themed specials to Paramount, which aired them in September 2020 and March 2021.
The lawsuit claims the pandemic specials ought to have been provided to Warner below the preliminary contract. The transfer, known as “verbal trickery” within the lawsuit, drove the present’s followers to the competing Paramount platform. Practically all South Park episodes premiere on Comedy Central, considered one of Paramount’s cable channels, the lawsuit says.
Present creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who launched the present in 1997 and oversee the franchise, weren’t named within the lawsuit.
Gaining streaming rights to “South Park” is a aggressive course of due to the possibly profitable market attracting extra subscribers, advertisers and a loyal fan base that Warner’s lawsuit says consists principally of younger adults.
The 24-page court docket submitting additionally cites a $900 million deal in 2021 between a Paramount subsidiary and South Park Digital Studios for unique content material on the Paramount Plus streaming service, which launched the identical yr.
Warner claims the deal was a deliberate “scheme” between Paramount, its subsidiary MTV Leisure Studios and South Park Digital Studios to “divert as a lot of the brand new South Park content material as potential to Paramount Plus so as to increase that nascent streaming platform.”
Warner paid $1,687,500 per episode and alleges it has not but obtained all episodes lined by the contract, leading to damages of greater than $200 million.
Paramount International didn’t instantly reply to emails from The Related Press searching for touch upon the lawsuit.
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