Happy Friday and welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon assortment of Puck’s best new reporting.

Today, we lead with Matt Belloni’s inside look at Amazon’s marketing campaign for Melania, Brett Ratner’s controversial documentary about—and produced by—the first lady, which is projected to gross a somewhat respectable $5 million in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend. As Matt reports, Amazon’s top content exec, Mike Hopkins, has committed more than $35 million to global marketing, on top of the $40 million the company paid for the film. But… is Melania really intended for an audience of one?

Plus, below the fold: John Ourand and Eriq Gardner trade notes on Duke’s epic Darian Mensah lawsuit. Ian Krietzberg explains why Sam Altman decided to finally put advertising inside ChatGPT. Julia Ioffe talks to a former three-star general about the logistical impracticalities of invading Greenland. And for Inner Circle members, Lauren Sherman profiles a frontrunner in the race to succeed Will Welch as the top editor of GQ.

Meanwhile, on the pods: Matt hosts Kyle Buchanan on The Town to discuss the biggest surprises among this year’s Oscar nominations. On The Grill Room, Dylan Byers and Julia Alexander chew over Ted Sarandos’s recent musings on the state of television and Neal Mohan’s vision for YouTube’s future. On Impolitic, John Heilemann and Mamdani whisperer Patrick Gaspard reflect on the first year of Trump’s second term. And on The Powers That Be, Peter Hamby and Ian discuss the NSFW controversies surrounding Grok, Elon’s X chatbot.

HOLLYWOOD

On top of the $40 million Amazon ponied up for Brett Ratner’s docu-hagiography, the studio is spending another $35 million to open it in 27 countries, including a splashy Kennedy Center premiere to be attended by top executives. But for all the expense, Melania is for an audience of one.

SPORTS

Assessing Duke’s epic lawsuit and a full slate of other football-related cases approaching their day in court with Eriq Gardner, Puck’s resident legal expert.

A.I.

It was inevitable that OpenAI, a massive consumer-facing company racking up historic losses, would enter the advertising business. Will this become the new normal for the industry? Or will ChatGPT users revolt?

WASHINGTON

After claiming the “framework of a deal” to expand America’s presence on the world’s largest island, Trump has dropped his threats to invade Greenland. Thank God, because a direct assault on Greenland wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.

FASHION

The chatter inside Condé Nast is that Adam Baidawi is winning the horse race to helm GQ’s global operations. But is it actually sealed up?

HOLLYWOOD

Matt is joined by New York Times reporter and awards season columnist Kyle Buchanan to discuss the biggest industry narratives surrounding this year’s Academy Awards nominations.

MEDIA

Julia and Dylan break down the week’s biggest media storylines, from Netflix’s earnings and Ted Sarandos’s candid take on the state of television to Neal Mohan’s annual letter outlining YouTube’s present—and its A.I.-shaped—future. The duo also weigh in on the ever-growing challenge of capturing attention in an increasingly oversaturated and fragmented media ecosystem, and the curious case of Mediaite’s perplexing new newsletter about… newsletters.

WASHINGTON

John welcomes Patrick Gaspard—longtime Democratic strategist, former White House advisor and U.S. ambassador to South Africa for Barack Obama, and current Zohran Mamdani political sherpa—back to the show for a special two-part episode. In this installment, Gaspard assesses the first year of Donald Trump’s second term; how Democrats are faring in their efforts to counter and cope with a pathological president; and what the national party can learn from Mamdani’s refusal to tamp down the loftiness of his rhetoric or the scale of his policy ambitions.

A.I.

Ian Krietzberg joins Peter to discuss the mounting controversies surrounding X’s A.I. chatbot, Grok, which has been accused of generating nonconsensual sexualized images of women—and why lawsuits against Elon Musk’s A.I. ventures are all but inevitable at this point. Ian also charts the soaring popularity of Anthropic’s new coding tool, Claude Code, and whether software engineers should plan to make a career pivot as the user-friendly tool sparks fresh fears about A.I.’s impact on real-life jobs.

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10006