MTV Productions MTV Productions was founded in 1991. It went into expansion two years later, with
Doug Herzog serving as president, to produce content for theatrical releases, broadcast television and cable, syndication, and the international marketplace. MTV then signed a two-picture deal with
Geffen Pictures. MTV Productions also tried for an entertainment strip called
Real Time, to be distributed by
Viacom Enterprises, and scheduled on air for the 1994–95 season, but never materialized. ''
Joe's Apartment'', based on a short aired on
MTV, would be the only film to come out of the Geffen Film deal due to the 1994 acquisition of
Paramount Pictures by MTV's parent company
Viacom. It was later released on July 26, 1996, and grossed $4.6 million on a $13 million budget, making it a box office bomb. Since its acquisition by Viacom, Paramount Pictures began to distribute material from MTV and
Nickelodeon. After
The Arsenio Hall Show was cancelled, Paramount began distributing and producing MTV's
The Jon Stewart Show for the syndication market. The
Paramount Television Group and MTV Productions signed a deal to develop projects commissioned by MTV in 1994, and gave Paramount the right of first refusal on projects developed by MTV. In the 1997–98 television season, MTV Productions, in conjunction with
Paramount Network Television, debuted the
NBC comedy
Jenny, the
UPN (then-sister of
MTV) comedy
Hitz, and the
WB drama
Three. None of these lasted more than one season.
MTV Films By 1995, David Gale was named head of
MTV Films. MTV developed its first feature film in collaboration with Paramount Pictures,
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Based on MTV's animated series
Beavis and Butt-Head, the film grossed $63.1 million on a $12 million budget. On August 21, 1998, MTV Films released
Dead Man on Campus, which starred
Tom Everett Scott and
Mark-Paul Gosselaar. It got negative reviews, and was a box office bomb, grossing $15.1 million on a $14 million budget. MTV Films' next feature project,
200 Cigarettes, released on February 26, 1999, and was also a box office bomb, grossing $6.8 million on a $6 million budget. In 2001,
Zoolander was released under the
VH1 Films label, and grossed $60.7 million on a $28 million budget. On August 21, 2006,
Nickelodeon Movies,
Comedy Central Films, and MTV Films became labels of the Paramount Motion Pictures Group. Less than eleven years later,
Paramount Players was created in 2017 as a division of Paramount's Motion Pictures Group and it consists of MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies, and
BET Films.
Relaunch and consolidation In June 2018, MTV announced it had rebranded its production & development division MTV Production Development and had it relaunched as a newly production unit dedicated to produce programming for other networks & streaming services alongside producing revivals from the MTV programming library under the name
MTV Studios, the newly rebranded production division would develop & produce revivals or re-imaginings of classic series from MTV's programming library, such as its animated series
Daria and
Aeon Flux alongside its unscripted television series
The Real World and
Made. Over the next two years, MTV Studios would launch its "MTV Documentary Films" label for producing and acquiring documentary features , while MTV Films would be folded into MTV Studios in 2020.
MTV Entertainment Studios In 2021, MTV Studios became
MTV Entertainment Studios, now encompassing content for, and based on, all brands within the
MTV Entertainment Group. In March 2022, MTV Entertainment Studios established an overall TV partnership with Emmy-winning producer, director & executive producer of the studios' production
Mayor of Kingstown Antoine Fuqua and his production banner Hill District Media to produce scripted & unscripted television content with MTV Entertainment Studios alongside its production partner 101 Studios would serve as co-producers for the partnership with Fuqua for its scripted & unscripted content. In February 2023 when MTV Entertainment Studios' parent Paramount Global interrogated Showtime's streaming platforms into its streaming service Paramount+ (which MTV Entertainment Studios had released its content into the service), MTV Entertainment Studios announced it had merged with Showtime's production operations and its unit
Showtime Studios alongside its leadership team into forming a combined entity renaming the production subsidiary to Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios with
Nina L. Diaz continued leading the merged production entitly Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios as its President of Content and CCO & would serve as Head of Scripted at the merged production unit as it retained the MTV Entertainment Studios and Showtime Studio names whilst Keith Cox continued serving as president of Scripted at the merged production unit Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios. A month later in March of that year after MTV Entertainment Studios merged with Showtime's production unit Showtime Studios, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios had partnered with film and TV producer Lashan Browning to form a new joint-venture full-service production subsidiary named Antoinette Media that would produce unscripted & scripted television series such as
Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta with Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios under the MTV Entertainment Studios name would co-produce with the new production subsidiary Antoinette Media. On August 7, 2025, as part of
Paramount Global's
merger with
Skydance Media, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios merged with
Skydance Television to form
Paramount Television Studios; the new company continued to use the MTV Entertainment Studios and Showtime Networks labels for the time being. == Filmography ==