Warner Bros. has sued Paramount Global for a whopping sum of $200 million over a South Park licensing deal. Warner signed a contract in 2019 with Paramount and paid $500 million for the exclusive rights of both old and new episodes of the popular comedic animation until 2015. The suit was officially filed earlier on Friday at the New York Supreme Court by HBO Max’s parent company accusing Paramount Global of reneging on parts of the $500 million licensing deal set in 2019 for the streaming rights to episodes of “South Park”.
The suit alleges that Paramount “blatantly intended to prop up Paramount+ at the expense of Warner/HBO”, and that Paramount engaged in “multiple and flagrant duplicitous contortions of fact and breaches of contract.”
“South Park” has been a staple of Paramount Global’s Comedy Central cable channel for more than 25 years. South Park hails from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it is in its 26th season and has more than 300 episodes till now.
The lawsuit alleges that when HBO Max bid on the “South Park” streaming rights, it did so with the assurance that there would be three new seasons of 10 episodes each. But only two episodes were delivered for the first of those seasons and only six for the second. HBO Max understands that the third season will also consist of six episodes , so there will be a total of 14 episodes across the three seasons.
The suit alleges that new episodes are more valuable than old ones, and that therefore HBO Max dramatically overpaid for the library. In response, Paramount denied the allegations. The company also accused Warner Bros. Discovery of failing to pay the license fees that it owes under the agreement.
