Shell Games, Biden’s Damage Control, Wimbledon Fashion

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your digital menu featuring Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Matt Belloni gets the skinny from David Ellison and Gerry Cardinale on the finally (probably) consummated Skydance-Paramount deal: how the lengthy negotiations actually played out, their plans for the storied studio, and why they feverishly pursued Shari’s dying company to begin with.

Plus, below the fold: Lauren Sherman reveals the second coming of Miranda Priestly. Peter Hamby digs into the bull case for Kamala. John Ourand foreshadows the Jeff Shell era at Paramount and CBS Sports. On Somebody’s Gotta Win, Tara Palmeri and CBS News’s Weijia Jiang candidly assess Biden’s attempts at damage control. On Fashion People, Lauren is joined by Glossier chronicler Marisa Meltzer to discuss the ‘Devil’ sequel, Wimbledon fashion, and the Saks-Neimans merger. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and Peter offer their close reading of Biden’s Morning Joe call and his budding war against “the elites” in his own party.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Skydance’s David Ellison reveals plans for the storied studio as he leverages his father’s Oracle fortune and the motivation to reinvent a dying company amid questions about his promised tech fixes: “This is what I wanna do for the rest of my life.”

LAUREN SHERMAN

Finally, a ‘Devil Wears Prada’ sequel is in the works, with Miranda Priestly facing the dystopian post-aughts realities of the magazine business. In other declining-industry news: notes on the Saks-Neimans merger.

PETER HAMBY

As Biden resists calls to drop out, “coconut-pilled” Democrats are warming to Harris as his possible replacement. Would she save the party from ruin—or be a bigger risk than Biden? One thing’s for sure: Harris makes way more sense atop the ticket than faddish fantasy candidates like Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro.

JOHN OURAND

CBS Sports executives are optimistic about the new Ellison-RedBird deal for Paramount. Not only is the endless deal process finally over, but president Jeff Shell “has a history of using sports content as a way to drive the core business,” as one person put it.

TARA PALMERI

Tara is joined by CBS News’s senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang to analyze the next steps for Joe Biden after a disastrous media week following his much-maligned debate performance. They shine a light on Team Biden’s attempts at damage control, speculate on what it would take for Joe to back out of the race, and talk succession possibilities for V.P. Kamala Harris.