Two New South Park Movies Are Coming To Paramount+ By The End Of 2021
When you have no less than 14 new movies scheduled to release over the next five years, it stands to reason that you'd have to start churning them out sooner rather than later. That's reportedly the case with "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who are less than a month removed from signing a near $1 billion deal extension with MTV Entertainment Studios and ViacomCBS Inc. that includes more seasons for the show as well as all those straight-to-streaming spin-off movies.
Recently, Paramount+ held a panel during the Television Critics Association event where they went into specifics on their release plan. In short: Expect this deluge of "South Park" movies to be released at a pace that rivals that of the MCU.
Two Movies A Year
Well, this is certainly one way to boost subscription numbers for a relatively little-known streaming service. According to Comic Book, "South Park" fans can expect the first two of these planned spin-off movies to premiere exclusively on Paramount+ before the end of 2021. Not only that, but there will also be an additional two movies each following year through 2027. If that seems like an absolutely ridiculous production schedule, well, that's because it is. But the saving grace could be that this isn't completely new ground for "South Park." Last year's quarantine shutdown provided an opportunity to create and release a "Pandemic Special," as well as a "South ParQ Vaccination Special" with quick turnaround times. It's possible that at least some amount of these movies will resemble those specials in scope and scale, as opposed to the 1999 movie, "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," which came in at a budget of around $20 million.
Money, of course, is hardly an issue when it comes to a deal as lucrative as this one is. Much of this emphasis on "South Park" represents a large-scale push to increase subscription numbers for the Paramount+ streaming service, justifying CBS' investment in the project at a time when the studio has very little in the way of marquee franchises beyond "Star Trek," "Mission: Impossible," "Transformers," and the (non-exclusive) rights to stream the "Indiana Jones" movies. "South Park" is a fine feather to add to their cap, particularly when it's now set to run for a total of 30 seasons and over a dozen movies.
As for the initial two movies, no release dates have yet been finalized.