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  • ‘South Park’ lawsuit: Warner Bros. Discovery sues Paramount for $500 million | CNN Business

    ‘South Park’ lawsuit: Warner Bros. Discovery sues Paramount for $500 million | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Paramount Friday, claiming the rival media company breached its half-billion-dollar exclusivity contract with HBO Max by airing “South Park” on its own streaming platform, Paramount+.

    HBO Max is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery, which also owns CNN.

    Nearly all “South Park” episodes air first on Paramount-owned Comedy Central. In 2019, Paramount and “South Park’s” creators together auctioned off streaming rights to the show’s first 23 seasons plus three new 10-episode seasons to HBO Max.

    Prior to Discovery’s 2022 merger with Warner Bros., WarnerMedia, then owned by AT&T, agreed to pay nearly $1.7 million for exclusive streaming rights for each “South Park” episode, the suit alleges. The first episodes of “South Park” season 24 were to be delivered in March 2020. Then came the pandemic, and WarnerMedia was told that the new production of “South Park” would be halted, according to the complaint.

    In March 2021, Paramount launched Paramount+, and Warner Bros. Discovery claims Paramount, MTV and South Park Digital Studios together “planned to divert as much of the new “South Park” content as possible to Paramount+ in order to boost that nascent streaming platform.”

    The company also said it was promised 30 new episodes over three seasons, but has only received 14 episodes to date.

    “We believe that Paramount and South Park Digital Studios embarked on a multi-year scheme of unfair trade practices and deception, flagrantly and repeatedly breaching our contract, which clearly gave HBO Max exclusive streaming rights to the existing library and new content from the popular animated comedy South Park,” HBO Max said in a statement.

    Paramount says these claims are “without merit.”

    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,” a Paramount Global spokesperson said.

    The lawsuit, filed in the New York State Supreme Court, also claims a separate $900 million deal between MTV, a subsidiary of Paramount, and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, broke the terms of the contract in August 2021. This deal included 14 “made-for-streaming” “South Park” movies that would premiere on Paramount+.

    Warner Bros. Discovery claims the defendants used language like “movies,” “films,” and “events” to sidestep their contractual obligations.

    “As Stone publicly described it, “we have f—k you money now,” the suit claims he said, regarding the deal with MTV.

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  • Sylvester Stallone tries to rewind the clock in Paramount’s ‘Tulsa King’ | CNN

    Sylvester Stallone tries to rewind the clock in Paramount’s ‘Tulsa King’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Building on the success of “Yellowstone,” Paramount+ and producer Taylor Sheridan have seemingly seized on a streaming strategy built around casting veteran movie stars, an available commodity in an industry known for ageism. Enter “Tulsa King,” a slim vehicle for Sylvester Stallone that’s a little too overtly designed as a mobster fish out of water.

    Stallone’s Dwight Manfredi (who says he was named after Eisenhower, no less) gets released back into the world after 25 years in prison, only to find that those running the mob in his old stomping grounds of New York – some of whom were “kids,” at least to him, when he went away to protect them – don’t want him around.

    “There’s nothing left for you here,” says the new boss (“The Wire’s” Domenick Lombardozzi), noting, “We can’t just rewind the clock.”

    Conceptually, though, that’s exactly what “Tulsa King” does, or at least tries to do, exiling Dwight to the dreary confines of Oklahoma. In short order, he quickly hires a driver (Jay Will) and sets about proving that he can continue earning even in the hinterlands, muscling into a business relationship with the local pot dispensary for starters.

    Dwight isn’t above punching people in the face when they deserve it, which can be helpful in negotiations, determined to demonstrate to the boys back home that if he can make it there, he’ll make it anywhere.

    “Tulsa King” turns out to be a rather odd mix of attributes, relying almost entirely on Stallone’s movie-star charisma as the show alternates between sitcom conventions and R-rated “The Sopranos”-flecked flourishes. When a woman meets him and later tells him she thought he was 55 (he cops to being 20 years older than that), it’s clear that a little ego stroking is also part of the formula.

    While Stallone holds the screen, some of the sitcom touches are weak and too obvious, with Dwight acting like he’s unfamiliar with anything that happened on the outside during the time he was behind bars, shaking his head at cellphones, credit cards and stores that don’t accept cash, his preferred means of transacting deals.

    As noted, streaming in general, and Paramount in particular, have become havens for older stars, with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren due in the “Yellowstone” prequel “1932” next month. After Stallone’s other recent streaming venture with the movie “Samaritan” on Amazon, the fact that the poster displays his name in big letters above the title makes clear what they’re selling here, and with streamers sparring for attention, it’s not a bad fight plan.

    In that sense, “Tulsa King” suggests maybe you can rewind the clock, just a little, even if you’re gonna fly a little bit lower now.

    “Tulsa King” premieres November 13 on Paramount+.

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