South Park guys issue rare, apparently genuine apology for not getting their Kendrick Lamar movie done yet

This is per The Ankler, as part of a longer report on the fate of the film, reportedly about “a historical slave plantation museum in the Midwest and a young Black re-enactor who lashes out at tourists and clashes with the town’s hypocritical, racist mayor.” In what the cynical might read as an attempt to get out ahead of accusations that David Ellison’s Paramount (which, to be fair, has apparently taken very little issue with South Park‘s hard political swipes of late) was uncomfortable with the movie’s political subject matter, Stone and Parker put out a statement today taking full blame for the delays: “We take full responsibility for the schedule delay of this movie,” the duo said. “We apologize to our partners at pgLang and Paramount and we appreciate their patience. South Park and life’s circumstances have gotten in the way but we still believe in the project.”

Details about Whitney Springs are still being kept tightly under wraps. (For one thing, that’s only an internal title; nobody knows what the movie’s actually called.) Executives at Paramount reportedly had to travel to Stone and Parker’s office to read Chatman’s script, and The Ankler report states that the movie has changed at least somewhat since getting the initial green light. (THR reported back in December that Lamar and his manager had requested “major reshoots” on the film; that same report stated that Parker, Stone, and Lamar have “full creative control” over the movie.) Paramount was pretty excited to initially announce the movie, but that was four years, and some pretty serious studio regime changes, ago. The film reportedly completed principal photography back in October of 2024, but Paramount has been extremely quiet about it ever since the schedule bump last November.