South Park will leave COVID behind with first Paramount+ special -- but it won't be "movie scale"

The Hollywood Reporter

When Trey Parker and Matt Stone signed their $935 million megadeal with ViacomCBS in August, it was reported that they agreed to make 14 movies for Paramount+. Parker and Stone clarify to The Hollywood Reporter that the Paramount+ projects are not feature films, but they are also not the longform South Park specials released on Comedy Central during the pandemic. Today, Paramount+ announced the first South Park special, South Park: Post COVID, will premiere on Nov. 25. The second of the 14 specials is scheduled to drop in December. “With Viacom, we realized we could make them as long or as short as we needed,” Parker says of the upcoming projects. “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.” Stone adds: “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.” Parker and Stone and their crew are still working remotely as their Marina del Rey studio remains closed, and they admit that the lack of in-person interaction has taken a toll. “That energy of closing a show, I think that is something we are trying to figure out remotely,” says Stone. Currently, Stone explains, the plan is for a portion of the South Park crew to return to the studio part-time in January to work on the new season.