‘South Park’ creators signal newest streaming mega take care of Paramount+

By AFP

LOS ANGELES: “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone signed a large deal Thursday, August 5, 2021, to make 14 motion pictures of their enduring satirical cartoon for streaming service Paramount+, as Hollywood’s frenzied scramble for on-line content material accelerates.

While MTV Entertainment Studios — which like Paramount+ is owned by guardian company ViacomCBS — didn’t launch any monetary figures, Bloomberg News put the deal at $900 million, which might make it one of many largest in tv historical past.

The Paramount+ streaming platform launched in March in a bid to compete in a crowded and content-hungry market led by the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime.

In an announcement, MTV Entertainment’s Chris McCarthy mentioned creating new content material with “tremendous talent like Matt and Trey, is at the heart of our strategy to continue growing Paramount+.”

The deal additionally contains a number of new collection of “South Park” for tv community Comedy Central, which is able to see the long-running satire attain its thirtieth yr by 2027.

“South Park,” set in small-town America and recognized for crude language and lampooning hot-button social points since 1997, has already spawned one movie, a number of video video games and different merchandise.

“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,” mentioned Parker and Stone within the joint assertion.

“We can’t wait to get back to doing traditional South Park episodes but now we can also try out new formats,” they added.

While ViacomCBS didn’t instantly touch upon the $900 million determine, it will put the deal on a par with Reese Witherspoon’s sale of her Hello Sunshine firm to a brand new non-public equity-backed media enterprise this week.

It additionally comes after Amazon in May agreed to purchase MGM studios for $8.45 billion.

Other streaming platforms not too long ago launched by main media and tech firms to hitch the so-called “streaming wars” embody HBO Max, Peacock and Apple TV+, every in search of huge content material libraries to draw and retain subscribers.

ViacomCBS mentioned Wednesday that it had reached 42 million streaming subscribers. Current market chief Netflix has greater than 200 million.