The planned South Park Season 27 premiere is reportedly in doubt as series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Paramount Global, and incoming studio owner Skydance fight over a deal said to be worth a whopping $3 billion.
Earlier this month, Parker and Stone expressed their frustration at Paramount’s decision to delay the premiere of Season 27 for two weeks in a social media post that wouldn’t have been out of place in the show itself.
“This merger is a s**tshow and it’s f**king up South Park,” the pair said in a joint statement. “We are at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow.”
— South Park (@SouthPark) July 2, 2025
Season 26 debuted over two years ago in March 2023 with only six episodes, with another three one-off episodes coming out between October of that year and March 2024.
Now, according to an in-depth report by The Hollywood Reporter, the ongoing dispute revolves around a new 10-year, $3 billion overall deal for Parker and Stone “that would more than triple the valuation of the current deal that expires in 2027.”
So what happens next? Apparently it’s “increasingly likely” the dispute ends up in court, as Parker and Stone have enlisted the services of one Bryan Freedman, “a prominent lawyer and bulldog negotiator known for aggressive legal maneuvering.” The threat here is a lawsuit accusing Skydance of interfering in contract negotiations.
Skydance reportedly insists it has approval rights on contracts (it’s still seeking the go-ahead for its merger with Paramount). Apparently the length of the proposed new deal is too long for Skydance, which wants to remain agile.
Season 27 is meant to launch on July 23, but that now feels up in the air. South Park streaming deals expired on June 30, which in turn caused the domestic deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to extend to keep the show on HBO Max. However, South Park was pulled from Paramount+’s internationally last week.
Check out The Hollywood Reporter’s article for all the details.
Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
