South Park The Streaming Wars Special Announced by Paramount+
The third South Park movie for Paramount+ has been announced for the streaming service with South Park: The Streaming Wars, set to premiere on Wednesday, June 1. A brief teaser and synopsis was also released, which reads: "Cartman locks horns with his mom in a battle of wills while an epic conflict unfolds that threatens South Park's very existence." You can find the first look at the special below. Streaming Wars marks the latest South Park original content to debut on the Paramount+ app, the third in a line of 14 planned original movies with two set to be released every year. 2021 saw the debut of South Park: Post-COVID and South Park: Post-COVID: The Return of COVID.
Ironically, the release of South Park original movies on Paramount+ was done as a means for gaining a foothold in the so called "Streaming Wars" at large. Prior to launching their own streaming service, Paramount+'s parent company sold the streaming rights to Warner Media for use on HBO Max for a hefty payday, but one that came with an extended window that HBO Max would be able to stream the entire series. By ordering the South Park original movies, Paramount is able to have some South Park content while they wait for the rest of the series to return. Paramount+ previously confirmed that the entire South Park catalog will be available to stream on the platform beginning in 2025, two and a half years from now.
When ordering the 14 South Park movies for Paramount+, South Park was also renewed through season 30, meaning that it will still be on the air through 2027 at least. That deal was reportedly worth in the neighborhood of $900 million.
"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," the duo said about the deal. "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."
South Park is currently releasing new episodes on Comedy Central, the backlog can be streamed on HBO Max, and the original movies can be found on Paramount+.
