Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is suing Paramount Global, alleging that the latter aired new episodes of the popular animated comedy series “South Park” after paying for exclusive rights.
According to a lawsuit filed Friday in New York State Supreme Court, Warner signed a contract in 2019 paying more than $500 million for the rights to existing and new episodes of the irreverent show.
HBO Max, Warner Bros.’ streaming service, was supposed to get the first episodes of a new “South Park” season in 2020. According to the lawsuit, the company was informed that the pandemic had halted production.
Despite Warner’s exclusive rights to the show until 2025, the company claims South Park Digital Studios, which produces the shows and is named a defendant in the lawsuit, offered Paramount two pandemic-themed specials, which aired in September 2020 and March 2021.
According to the lawsuit, the pandemic specials should have been offered to Warner as part of the original contract. The move, described in the lawsuit as “verbal trickery,” drove the show’s fans to the competing Paramount platform. According to the lawsuit, nearly all South Park episodes premiere on Comedy Central, one of Paramount’s cable channels.
The lawsuit does not name show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who launched the show in 1997 and oversee the franchise.
According to Warner’s lawsuit, gaining streaming rights to “South Park” is a competitive process due to the potentially lucrative market attracting more subscribers, advertisers, and a loyal fan base comprised primarily of young adults.
A $900 million deal in 2021 between a Paramount subsidiary and South Park Digital Studios for exclusive content on the Paramount Plus streaming service, which launched the same year, is also mentioned in the 24-page court filing.
Warner claims the deal was a deliberate “scheme” between Paramount, it’s subsidiary MTV Entertainment Studios and South Park Digital Studios to “divert as much of the new South Park content as possible to Paramount Plus to boost that nascent streaming platform.”
Warner paid $1,687,500 per episode and claims it has yet to receive all episodes covered by the contract, resulting in more than $200 million in damages.
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Meghan Markle ‘Upset and Overwhelmed’ Following South Park Depiction
Meanwhile, in the latest episode of “South Park,” titled “The Worldwide Privacy Tour,” Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were brutally roasted.
Though the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not directly mentioned in the episode, it did feature characters who were described as Canadian royalty and dubbed “the prince and his wife,” clearly mocking the couple.
The couple was also mentioned in “The Worldwide Privacy Tour,” including Harry’s explosive memoir and their six-part Netflix series “Harry & Meghan.”
In the episode, the red-headed prince and his wife – who wore a pink ensemble that resembled one worn by Markle, 41, for 2018 Trooping the Colour – decide to leave Canada after a falling out with the royal family following the queen’s death.
The pair embark on a worldwide “We Want Privacy” tour before landing in South Park, where they move into a house across the street from Kyle Broflovski, much to his chagrin.
The episode skewers Harry and Meghan in typical “South Park” fashion, with jokes, innuendos, and thinly veiled references.
Meghan Markle was reportedly “upset and overwhelmed” by the portrayal of herself and Prince Harry in the most recent episode of the US comedy South Park. “South Park irritates her, but she refuses to watch it all,” she says.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the show’s creators, are known for hilariously mocking a wide range of celebrities, but some felt they went ‘too far’ with one gag, in which they very accurately recreated several of Meghan’s real-life magazine covers.
She did cartoon versions of the Vanity Fair front page before she married Harry and one for The Cut to promote her Spotify podcast.
But the most controversial one is a spoof of GQ, which in real life had the headline ‘Meghan’s annus mirabilis’, which translates from Latin to ‘Meghan’s wonderful year’. However, the South Park version controversially read: “Princess Anus.”
Most viewers deemed the new episode hilarious, including the Sussexes’ harshest critic, Piers Morgan, who tweeted: “The South Park rinsing of Meghan and Harry is brilliant… I believe this is how most Americans now perceive them.”
