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Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s
best new reporting.

First up today, Matt Belloni offers up Part 1 of his 25 (probably) surefire predictions (including several special guest submissions!) for the issues and events that will shape the entertainment industry over the coming year: What happens to Michael Rubin’s infamous White Party? Will Amazon scoop up UFC? And could Rupert Murdoch
sell Fox News to… himself?

Plus, below the fold: Lauren Sherman chronicles the latest Kardashian headaches as Kim’s private equity vehicle sputters and Kylie’s fashion brand loses a partner. John Ourand digs into the R.S.N. showdown between Jim Dolan’s MSG Networks and the troubled cable
distributor Altice. Peter Hamby assesses the time crunch facing Trump’s single-term presidency. And Matt scoops the price tag for Amazon’s Brett Ratner-directed Melania vanity documentary. 

Meanwhile, in Puck’s podcast universe: Lucas Shaw joins The Town to spar with Matt over this year’s Golden Globes. On Fashion
People, Lauren rings up entertainment journalist Zanna Roberts Rassi to pick the best (and worst) looks from the red carpet. On The Grill Room, Dylan Byers and Ian Orefice discuss the massive impact of live sports rights in the race for streaming dominance. And on The Powers That Be, Abby Livingston reveals why the G.O.P. will have trouble passing legislation during Trump 2.0. 

It’s a New Year’s tradition as cherished as the Rose Bowl and leftover Tom Cruise holiday cake:
Matt’s annual predictions. After a very challenging year for Hollywood—box office blunders, head-spinning legal sagas, and a light malaise settling across the industry—Matt (along with a handful of entertainment executives and insiders) offers Part 1 of his 100 percent guaranteed predictions that will shape the year to come. Will Rupert wind up selling Fox Corp. to protect Fox News from his less conservative, non-Lachlan children? Will CAA and its defectors
reach a settlement in court? Can Avatar 3 gross over $2 billion and outperform its predecessor? Matt has the answers…

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While some corners of the Kardashian empire continue to thrive—Skims, for instance, appears
bound for an I.P.O. in the next two years—there have been the inevitable misfires characteristic of any investment firm, which is essentially how this family business operates. To wit: Kim recently stepped down from Skky, the private equity firm she co-founded, which has only raised about 12 percent of the $1 billion-plus that it hoped to secure when it announced its launch in 2022; Kylie’s fashion brand Khy has lost key partners in recent months; and the family is still trying
to make Safely, Kris Jenner’s cleaning products line, happen. All of this begs the perennial question: Have we passed peak Kardashian?

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New York has always been an oversaturated market for regional sports networks—MSG, SNY, YES,
etcetera—a consequence of the fact that most of its pro teams are owned individually. One glaring exception, of course, is Jim Dolan, who inherited the Knicks and Rangers, whose games populate his own MSG Network. As John reports, Dolan is now leading MSG into an existential battle with Altice, the deeply troubled cable distributor, which has dropped MSG Networks from its Optimum-branded New York system. With Dolan running out of options to avoid sending his networks into bankruptcy, New York,
perhaps the last stable R.S.N. market, may finally be ripe for consolidation.

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Trump returns to office with full Republican control of government, unrivaled attentional
powers, and Oval Office experience under his belt, but he’s short on time to push his campaign promises through Congress before his presidency begins to give off the stench of lame duck. That’s why, as Peter reports, Republicans are racing against an 18-month deadline to ram through their agenda before a likely midterm shakeup. To assess the state of play, Peter chats with a handful of insiders—Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, Senator Adam Schiff, and Rep. Ritchie Torres—to uncover
the opposition playbook for capitalizing on inevitable G.O.P. overreach. 

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The Town collectively gasped at the news that Amazon will release a Melania Trump documentary
directed by Brett Ratner, the Rush Hour filmmaker who has not made a Hollywood movie since 2018, when he was accused of sexual malfeasance by several women. (He’s denied the claims.) Indeed, the fact that this vanity documentary will air on a platform whose founder, Jeff Bezos, recently dined at Mar-a-Lago and is using his media properties to suck up to Trump makes this whole thing even more ridiculous. But in this dispatch, Matt reveals another key detail: the remarkable, eight-figure
price that Amazon is paying…

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Matt and Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw react to the Golden Globes, and Lucas offers his takeaways from
inside the room Sunday night. Then they look ahead to the new year and pose their biggest industry questions for 2025. Finally, Matt looks back at his year in predictions on The Call Sheet, and Craig reveals whether this was Matt’s best or worst year of prognosticating.

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Lauren is joined by fashion journalist and red carpet presenter Zanna Roberts Rassi to discuss
the best (and mediocrely) dressed at the 2025 Golden Globe Awards, from Emma Stone in Louis Vuitton to Ayo Edebiri in Loewe, and how their stylists made those looks happen. Zanna shares plenty of behind-the-scenes intel and anecdotes from the red carpet, and Lauren offers a dispatch from the W magazine party. Plus, the duo weigh in on Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Ralph Lauren and Anna Wintour.

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Ian Orefice, founder of EverWonder Studio and former Time Studios president, joins Dylan to dig
into how live sports has become the next front in the streaming wars. Then they kibitz about EverWonder’s role in producing the record-breaking Netflix Christmas Day NFL games and whether the Tyson vs. Paul fight represents the future of sports media rights battles to come.

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Abby Livingston joins Peter to discuss the challenges and prospects for Republicans in passing
legislation during Trump’s second term—especially after the harrowing pre-Christmas government spending bill near-disaster. Then they turn to the potential for executive orders by Trump and what, if anything, Democrats can do about it.

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