‘South Park’ Showdown: Warner Bros Discovery Hits “Opportunistic” Paramount Global & Series Creators With $200M Streaming Rights Suit

deadline.com:

“Screw you guys, we’re going to sue,” a Cartman paraphrasing Warner Bros Discovery essentially said to Paramount Global and the series creators today in a scathing lawsuit over South Park streaming rights. “This is a case about Defendants’ opportunistic repudiation of Warner/HBO’s exclusive streaming rights in the popular animated comedy series South Park, for which Warner/HBO agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars,” the breach of contract and other claims suit filed in New York says of the big bucks 2019 deal the parties struck. “As a result of Defendants’ misconduct, Warner/HBO has incurred, and continues to incur, damages in excess of $200 million dollars,” the jury seeking complaint adds (read it here).

Drilling deep into the core of the streaming wars and the battle for subscribers that Paramount+ and HBO Max continue to wage, the 24-page filing unveils alleged pandemic and “grammatical sleight-of-hand” moves, an “illicit conspiracy,” and “verbal trickery” on the part of the Bob Bakish-run conglomerate, chief content officer Chris McCarthy and South Park Digital Studios.

Paramount Global says, no, and actually you owe us some dough. “We believe these claims are without merit and look forward to demonstrating so through the legal process,” a spokesperson for the company told Deadline Friday. “We also note that Paramount continues to adhere to the parties’ contract by delivering new South Park episodes to HBO Max, despite the fact that Warner Bros.

Discovery has failed and refused to pay license fees that it owes to Paramount for episodes that have already been delivered, and which HBO Max continues to stream.” Back in pre-pandemic era, when newly minted streamers seemingly went around with bags of money in