“We’re going to have this great flywheel of content going back and forth,” Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins told TheWrap.
Disney+ has Marvel and Star Wars. HBO Max has DC Comics and a whole bunch of Warner Bros. film premieres. To crash the streaming party, Paramount+ is bringing … SpongeBob SquarePants?
Paramount+, ViacomCBS’ beefed-up version of CBS All Access, debuted March 4 with not one but two projects based on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, the brand’s second feature adaptation; and Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years, the first spinoff TV series that follows SpongeBob and his friends during their summer camp days.
Brian Robbins, president of Nickelodeon, SpongeBob’s longtime home, spoke to TheWrap about the multiplatform play for the anthropomorphic sea sponge and his fellow underwater friends: “We’re fortunate enough to be able to feed both mouths in this case. That’s just one example of how our strategy unfolds.”
Along with Sponge on the Run and Kamp Koral, Nickelodeon is developing a second spinoff, The Patrick Star Show, starring Bill Fagerbakke’s Patrick Star character for its own channel.
Kamp Koral was initially developed for Nickelodeon, before ViacomCBS’ Paramount+ plans were known. That, along with fellow animated series Star Trek: Prodigy, where then shuffled over to the new streaming service to help it bulk up to compete with fellow newcomers Disney+ and HBO Max.
Robbins said the decision was less about the idea that Kamp Koral works better on a streaming service, and more about how they could give Paramount+ and the SpongeBob franchise a massive jolt.
“We have a new SpongeBob spin off, actually the first ever spin off after all these years, Kamp Koral, that debuted on Paramount+ last week. At the same time, the Sponge on the Run theatrical debuted on Paramount+. And for the first time ever, you had the entire library of SpongeBob available on demand on a streaming service. So we looked at that as this giant moment,” Robbins said. “And it’s paid off. The consumption has been great for all of those properties on the platform since launch last week.”
The decision to put the Patrick Star spinoff of Nickelodeon, Robbins said, is part of windowing strategy at ViacomCBS. Nickelodeon will premiere the first season of Kamp Koral that is currently streaming on Paramount+ this fall, which will coincide with the second season of Kamp Koral on the streaming service. On the other end, after the Patrick Star series finishes its run on Nickelodeon, it will become available on Paramount+.
“We’re going to have this great flywheel of content going back and forth,” Robbins said. “The consumption on the platforms are different.”
SpongeBob is not the only franchise that Nick has in is stable. They’re also developing a revival of popular ’90s cartoon Rugrats that will premiere this spring on Paramount+ (and presumably have a run on Nickelodeon sometime later). Last month, Nick announced that Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the creators behind the network’s beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender, are returning to the company to launch Avatar Studios, a new division that will produce animated projects within the franchise.
The studio’s first project will be a film set within the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and sequel series Legend of Korra. Multiple series are also planned.
“[It] has just grown immensely since it went off the air years ago, and the love for this franchise is beyond,” Robbins said. “Now we have the original creators back, we’re about to blow it out.”
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