Paramount+ To Limit Budgets, License Series

With Skydance taking over Paramount, there are going to be some major changes at the studio and its debt-ridden streamer Paramount+ and chief amongst those cuts will be episode budgets.

Paramount’s new streaming chief is Cindy Holland, a Netflix veteran who served as the streamer’s original content VP through until late 2020. Puck News reports that Holland has been stating in meetings with creators and agents that her target budget for new episodes of shows is $9 million.

Shows like the various recent live-action “Star Trek” series come in at under that amount (reportedly around $8 million), but others are impacted – most notably Taylor Sheridan’s assorted series which reportedly cost $12-16 million each due to their long location shoots and major stars.

At one point two years ago, it was estimated Paramount Global was spending over $500 million a year on the production of Taylor Sheridan’s shows. That may no longer be the case and the report indicates Sheridan is already considering options.

The report also indicates Paramount is now looking into following the paths of other streamers and licensing out its original content for other services with the likes of Netflix, Prime Video, and Max all reportedly interested.

The talk comes as Guy Ritchie’s “MobLand” broke a record as the streamer’s largest global series launch ever, with 2.2 million global viewers tuning in on March 30th.

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