The ongoing lawsuit between Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery over South Park‘s streaming rights continued on Thursday, with Paramount accusing Warner Bros. of owing upwards of $52 million in licensing fees.
In a counterclaim made on Wednesday by Paramount, the company alleged that Max received the content Paramount agreed to give it, but accused Warner Bros. Discovery of witholding two payments of $26 million in the process. The countersuit (via Variety) also notes that the $52 million covers the 300-plus episodes of South Park that are currently available on Max.
“Warner Bros. Discovery has indefensibly refused to pay the more than $50 million dollars it owes for South Park content that it has undisputedly received and which HBO Max continues to air and exploit,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement. “Warner Bros. Discovery’s argument that Paramount Global was required to deliver additional South Park content is baseless and wholly unsupported by the parties’ agreement. Furthermore, it certainly does not justify WBD’s refusal to pay for immensely valuable content all of which it has received and from which it continues to profit.”
The original suit from Warner Bros. Discovery, filed in February, claims that Paramount breached its contract by purposely steering South Park specials and other content to its own streaming platform, Paramount+.
The suit also alleviates that Paramount “blatantly intended to prop up Paramount+ at the expense of Warner/HBO” and that Paramount engaged in “multiple and flagrant duplicitous contortions of fact and breaches of contract.”
Back in 2019, HBO Max and Paramount came to an agreement for rights to South Park episodes, which would allow the entirety of South Park‘s library, as well as the 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncutto be put onto HBO Max.