Later this month, Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s animated series South Park will begin its 23rd season on Comedy Central. Although the frequently controversial and almost always hilarious show has already been renewed through 2022, it’s not the only project Matt Stone and Trey Parker have on their minds. The South Park creators actually want to make more movies, as Matt Stone explained:
We think of ourselves as filmmakers, and it's like, everyone is doing TV now. It's like, movies, even though the movie business is all fucked up. And everyone will tell you don't go into movies. We just want to do a movie.
They may be best known for South Park on TV, but Matt Stone and Trey Parker have big screen experience as well. Trey Parker wrote and directed the 1997 comedy Orgazmo and the duo worked together on South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police. So as they told The Hollywood Reporter, they think of themselves as filmmakers and want to dive back into that space with a new movie.
Matt Stone acknowledges that the movie business might be a hassle and that with so many different platforms, everyone is working in television now, but that does not dissuade them. They don’t care about the hurdles and headaches of the movie business, they just want to make one. They sound extremely eager about it too, like they’re just itching for the opportunity to make more movies.
This isn’t just an abstract desire either; Matt Stone and Trey Parker have some things in mind for new movie projects. These film projects are not South Park-related, so Kyle, Kenny, Cartman and Stan’s escapades will be confined to the small screen for now. Stone and Parker wouldn’t divulge to THR what exactly their movie plans entail, but Matt Stone did describe them as "really fucking killer ideas."
Stone and Parker’s last film, the puppet comedy Team America, was 15 years ago and in the time since then, we’ve seen the rise of streaming services. So with the South Park creators so keen on making more movies, you might think that they could take their movies to one of the many platforms available today (Disney+ is the obvious candidate right?). But the two have no interest in making movies for streaming platforms, as Matt Stone made clear:
Theoretically, I would like it to be in theaters so people have to watch it together.
Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg and Matt Stone & Trey Parker: defenders of the theatrical experience. Movies on streaming platforms might be in vogue right now, but releasing a movie that way does not interest the South Park creators. They want to make more movies and they want them to be seen by audiences on the big screen.
Although Trey Parker also hinted that they really like premiere parties, their reasoning seems to primarily be that they want people to see their movies with a crowd. That is something that can’t be replicated at home, no matter how nice your home theater system and even if you invite a bunch of people over.
Seeing a movie with a packed theater (of hopefully courteous people) is an incredible experience. And if we are to assume that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have comedy movies in mind, they want theaters full of people all laughing together.
South Park Season 23 premieres on Comedy Central on September 25. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all the movies coming to the big screen this fall.
