☀️ UNI Drops ‘Odyssey’ Hammer, AMAZON Brings Tonnage To Vegas
SEARCHLIGHT’s SXSW buy / AMAZON enlists Demi Moore / UFC’s latest CBS numbers
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Thursday, April 16, 2026.
Where it seems the first big casualty of Saudi spending from Trump’s Iran war may not be Hollywood . . . but sports.
Yes, it appears that the Saudi PIF fund is close to pulling its financial backing for the LIV GOLF boondoggle after 4 years . . . right as the 2026 PGA season enters its prime.
Not a lotta details about what will transpire from here or if the
Saudis are 💯 on pulling the plug, but, yeah — gonna be a fun year ahead for golf and PGA CEO Brian Rolapp.
HUH: LIVE NATION / TICKETMASTER is a monopoly, who knew?
AH: AMC THEATRES is joining the #pricehike train, upping the prices for its Stubs membership program, +$2 a month to $30 if you’re in NY and CA (it’ll be $28 for users who exclude those states). Its last #pricehike was a year ago. Folks — didn’t you listen to Tom Rothman this week?!
THEN: The Tribeca Fest announced its lineup and schedule — you can peruse here.
ALSO: Here is your CBS fall TV schedule, with Matlock and Ghosts moving to midseason, but with full-season orders (although Ghosts will get hour-long holiday specials in October and December)
And good news! We’re getting another CSI. 😱 This time in NYC with LL Cool J and Scott Caan— and if they don’t use LL’s “I’m Bad” as the theme song . . . know that I’m very disappointed in you, CBS.
CBS is also bringing back the ’90s by setting a development room for a cop show with Matt LeBlanc called Flint, which would shoot in L.A. if it happens.
Daytime series Beyond the Gates has also been renewed for 2 more seasons.
THEN: AMAZON PV dropped out 1-2 minutes of the HEAT vs. HORNETS NBA Play-In game overtime on Tuesday night. A hardware glitch in the production truck was cited as the cause of the outage.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
WB/NLC’s Lee Cronin’s The Mummy seems to be looking anywhere from about $15M up to $20M-ish if you’re feeling bold.
🎞️ CINEMACON 2026
A couple of reports today from the UNI and AMAZON MGM presentations, which were quite different from each other.
One was delivered with the confidence of an executive team that’s worked together for many years, with solely a focus on the year ahead and reinforcing a wide variety of offerings . . . and the other came out with a lotta swagger, testosterone and the ferocity of an upstart movie studio still looking to prove itself with theater owners, and a large lineup of pics.
I’ll take a look at how I think both succeeded or not and where, plus hand out some more awards for each:
Best Thing I Saw
Biggest Question Mark
Biggest Mic Drop
Net Net Takeaways
And some other special categories (kudos to Donna Langley for the executive joke of the con so far)
UNIVERSAL throws down the auteur gauntlet
Snoop Dogg fulfilled the blood contract that he signed with NBCU to appear at every corporate function and kicked things off at the UNI presentation (with his UNIVERSAL “globe” chain necklace on, naturally). He also plugged the biopic he’s working on at UNI with Craig Brewer (Song Sung Blue) and producer Brian Grazer, which is set for next year.
Snoop also, of course, then handed the mic (and another UNIVERSAL “globe” necklace he keeps on hand) to Dame Donna Langley — who thankfully had some fun with the crowd that got a hearty laugh in the room: