Grammy-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar‘s PGLang company has teamed with Matt Stone and Trey Parker‘s Park County banner to produce a new feature film for Paramount Pictures.
The live-action comedy, written by Vernon Chatman, will “depict the past and present coming to a head when a young Black man, who is interning as a slave re-enactor at a living history museum, discovers that his white girlfriend’s ancestors once owned his.”
Lamar and PGLang partner Dave Free will produce the project alongside Stone and Parker. Paramount Pictures will handle theatrical distribution, home entertainment and television licensing rights on the project, with Paramount Plus acquiring streaming rights.
Production on the yet-to-be-titled feature begins in the spring.
“On behalf of Paramount Pictures and the wider ViacomCBS family, we look forward to ushering in the first theatrical collaboration from these creative visionaries, and galvanizing audiences worldwide around a powerful storytelling experience,” Paramount Pictures president and CEO Brian Robbins said announcing the project.
News of the project comes as Lamar’s fans anxiously await a new album from the rapper, songwriter and record producer who has been honored with 13 Grammy Awards, six Billboard Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for his unique style of storytelling through rap. Incidentally, the Compton native’s last full-length project was for another major motion picture, 2018’s “Black Panther.” Lamar produced the soundtrack to the film, which earned a best original song Oscar nomination for his track “All the Stars” with SZA and won two Grammys.
Lamar and Free, also a Grammy and MTV Award-winning visionary creative and executive, launched PGLang in 2020, with the venture described as a multi-lingual company with aims to communicate “this generation’s creative language through mediums exemplifying the shared experiences that connect us all.”
Stone and Parker are best known as the five-time Emmy-winning creatives behind “South Park,” which is set to air its 25th season in 2022. The duo recently inked a new deal with MTV Entertainment Studios that sees the series through Season 30, with 14 original made-for-streaming movies for Paramount Plus and the development of new to-be-announced series also in the works.
The pair are also behind 1999’s Oscar-nominated feature “South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut.” In 2004, they released the feature-length film “Team America: World Police.” The duo also teamed up with Robert Lopez to create the nine-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Book of Mormon.”
Chatman is a four-time Emmy and Peabody award-winning writer, director and voice actor. In addition to working as a writer and producer on “South Park” for 20 seasons, he also created Adult Swim’s “The Shivering Truth” and co-created the cult series “Wonder Showzen,” “Xavier: Renegade Angel,” Trigger Warning With Killer Mike” and “Doggie Fizzle Televizzle With Snoop Dogg.” Chatman’s resume includes gigs writing for “The Chris Rock Show,” “Conan O’Brien” and “Louie,” plus he created the experimental film “Final Flesh,” the book “Mindsploitation” and produced the Andy Kaufman comedy album “Andy and His Grandmother.”
