Good morning,

Thanks for reading The Backstory, your weekly digest of the best new work from Puck.

It was another fabulous week at Puck! Matt Belloni unearthed the script for the new hagiographic Michael Jackson tentpole; Julia Alexander analyzed Netflix’s new film strategy; Dylan Byers offered the latest morsels of Times kremlinology; Eriq Gardner calculated Sam Bankman-Fried’s new sentencing odds; Tara Palmeri offered the readout from Mar-a-Lago on Super Tuesday; Lauren Sherman reported from the latest theater in the red carpet wars; Rachel Strugatz dug into the juiciest beauty market M&A curiosity; Teddy Schleifer revealed Jack Dorsey’s unconsummated political yearning for R.F.K. Jr.; and John Ourand previewed Spulu’s next hurdle.

FASHION:
Lauren Sherman captures the Demna family drama from Paris before returning to L.A. to observe the Oscar red carpet machinations.
and…
Rachel Strugatz spills Sephora secrets and combs through the Summer Fridays dealbook.

WALL STREET:
Bill Cohan explains why the banking crowd is hedging their Biden bets.

SILICON VALLEY:
Eriq Gardner evaluates the S.B.F. sentencing game theory.
and…
Teddy Schleifer scoops Jack Dorsey’s thwarted investment in R.F.K. Jr.

MEDIA:
Dylan Byers offers a talmudic reading of the latest Times micro-scandal.
and…
John Ourand digs into Amazon’s live-sports ulterior motives and Spulu recriminations.

WASHINGTON:
Tara Palmeri gathers the inner circle gossip about Trump’s veepstakes.
and…
Julia Ioffe imagines Moscow after Navalny.
and…
Peter Hamby discusses Biden’s Gaza dilemma with prominent pollster Mark Mellman.

PODCASTS:
Matt and Lauren discuss the red carpet arms race taking place this Oscar season on The Town.
and…
Tara and Michigan senatorial candidate Hill Harper chew over his long-shot odds on Somebody’s Gotta Win.
and…
Peter and Dylan explain Mark Thompson’s true intentions at CNN on The Powers That Be.

Meanwhile, I also encourage you to take advantage of our article gifting feature. You can share our work with your colleagues, friends, and family. Subscribers are entitled to 5 article gifts per month.

Back then, magazines weren’t simply monthly books that you read; they were veritable cinematic worlds festooned with familiar features, complex character dynamics, and delicious subplots. Graydon Carter, my old boss and the art form’s most prodigious talent, understood that newspapers and periodicals were nerdy and punctilious products that people read out of a sense of obligation—like studying for a Latin test or watering their garden. People read magazines, however, because they loved them. And, frankly, because they couldn’t imagine their lives—their ability to do their job or be a functioning member of adult society—without them.

Back in those storied days, Vanity Fair came to life each year at its annual Oscar Party, easily the most decadent and inaccessible soirée on the planet. In that era, before parties had to be recategorized as events, the purpose was singular and unmistakable. Graydon used to keep framed in his office the photographer Slim Aarons’ ineffable observation that editing was “the art of elimination.” And the Oscar Party, itself, was the clearest distillation of that ethos: a physical incarnation of those people who actually drove the culture, from the most powerful media tycoons to actors and actresses, real estate barons, elite athletes, and all those enigmatic Mitteleuropean machers who knew everyone even if you couldn’t quite explain what they did for a living. Each guest was given an invitation with a specified time slot for when they could attend. Ostensibly this was to avoid overcrowding, but it surely helped edit the mix of the crowd within.

And I rode shotgun through all of it. As a young whippersnapper, just a few months out of college, I remember making small talk with Tom Brady and Bridget Moynahan, who had arrived almost embarrassingly punctually and wandered a nearly empty ballroom behind the old Mortons in West Hollywood. I recall watching the recently married Donald Trump and Melania walk through a crowded room, during the early Apprentice era, and note how he parted the room because no one wanted to talk to the future president, who now faces around half a billion dollars in financial penalties. Another time, I remember sheepishly asking Mick Jagger to move his seat because Tom Cruise was about to make a surprise entrance on a motorcycle. Anyway, I think that happened.

Part of the beauty of that time came from the fact that, yes, it was a party. People certainly conducted plenty of business in those rooms, but they also stayed out late and enjoyed themselves, drank too much, smoked plenty, and had already told their assistants to hold all calls until at least noon the next day. Indeed, things have long since professionalized. And I was reminded of this transformation while reading my partner Lauren Sherman’s characteristically brilliant piece, The Red Carpet Shadow Wars, about the arms race among the largest fashion brands to dress talent, and sign them to long-term sponsorship and brand ambassador deals, amid this busy awards season. (Lauren and our partner Matt Belloni discuss the escalation of this phenomenon on his excellent podcast, The Town.)

Parties aren’t what they used to be, sure, but that’s also because few industries have changed more profoundly than the movie business. As Matt notes in Disney, Netflix, and the Less-Is-More Movie Mantra, his gripping analysis of Hollywood in the streaming era, creatives have never been more beholden to data in their efforts to rediscover product-market-fit with audiences. (That sentence alone speaks volumes about how the industry stumbled off track.) It is only recently that executives at Disney and Netflix have again started asking the question, Does this movie need to exist?

But if you only have time to read one piece this weekend, I’d behoove you to turn your attention to Julia Alexander’s excellent companion piece, Assessing Netflix’s Less-Is-More Film Strategy, which examines the O.G. streamer’s reappraisal of its movie studio amid changing times, desires, interests, and habits—a move that’s almost certain to ripple through the industry. It’s the story of our time, of course, and precisely what you should expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon