South Park South Park

The first two out of 14 upcoming South Park movies will premiere on Paramount+ by the year’s end — though perhaps we shouldn’t be calling them movies.

“With Viacom, we realized we could make [the projects] as long or as short as we needed,” franchise co-creator Trey Parker told The Hollywood Reporter. “And they then went and called them movies. They are the ones who said we are giving them 14 movies in seven years. All I can say is for me, personally, I am 52 years old, I have made three movies in my life. So you do the math.”

Fellow co-creator Matt Stone elaborated: “We’re trying to make what’s on Paramount+ different from anywhere else, so hourlong made-for-tv movies is where our head is at. We’ll do two made-for-tv movies every year. They will be big, but they are not quite movie scale.”

The first, South Park: Post Covid, will drop on November 25. “It’s the boys dealing with a post-Covid world,” said Parker. “They’re just trying to get back to normal.”

Things aren’t quite back to normal for the show’s production crew, which continues to work from home. “The technical part is fine,” said Stone of remote production. “It is the human part that we are still trying to figure out.” The current plan is for some of the team to return part-time to the studio in Marina del Rey, California in January.

The 14 “movies” for Paramount+ were announced in August, as part of a $900 million mega-deal Parker and Stone struck with ViacomCBS’s MTV Entertainment Studios. The duo also agreed to create new episodes of the series for Comedy Central through its 30th season in 2027.

They touch on various issues in the interview with The Hollywood Reporter, including the recent controversy surrounding Netflix’s Dave Chappelle special, in which the comedian made comments seen by many as transphobic but defended by the streamer. “I think Netflix’s reputation in the Hollywood community went way, way up,” says Stone. “That’s all I’m going to say.”

Why the 'South Park' deal was so valuable to its creators

Alex Dudok de Wit

Alex Dudok de Wit is Deputy Editor of Cartoon Brew.