From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

When George Lucas made an unprecedented, rich deal for Raiders of the Lost Ark,

Barry Diller, then Chairman of Paramount, insisted the payday for future Indiana Jones movies

would be along more conventional lines.

Then Lucas came to him with the sequel.

When that didn't come to be true, particularly from someone who had said such awful things

about the morals of Hollywood and didn't live there, lived in another city, et cetera,

it particularly rankled. Still does, kind of.

Our two-part conversation with Barry Diller wraps up with stories from his years building Rupert Murdoch's Fox Empire.

He also has sharp criticism of studios spreading reckless misinformation, citing Oliver Stone's JFK as one example.

And he weighs in on the now-settled Trump-Paramount battle and shares his take on a David Ellison-led studio. But first two buddies banter

while I'm away. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW. I'm Matt Bellany, filling in for

Kim Masters, and I'm here with Lucas Shaw, the head of the entertainment group at Bloomberg. Welcome, Lucas.

Great to be here, Matt. Okay. So the South Park dispute that we've alluded to

on the business before, that has escalated. The creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker,

they have hired Brian Friedman, the very tenacious litigator currently representing Justin Baldoni

in the Blake Lively case

to explore a lawsuit potentially against the incoming regime at Paramount.

As we know, Paramount is being sold to David Ellison and his group from Skydance and Redbird.

And behind the scenes, there was a deal that had been negotiated to a handshake point

where the South Park show would be renewed on HBO Max.

It airs on HBO Max for a 10-year deal at about a billion dollars in valuation,

...