Talk about a daring and devilish move.
This weekend, The Devil Wears Prada 2 will become the first chick flick in modern history to kick off the summer box office, a duty that has generally gone to a Marvel superhero pic. One exception was Universal’s The Fall Guy in 2024, the Ryan Gosling-Emily Blunt starrer which could never quite decide whether it was an action movie or a romancer. It opened to a sorely disappointing $27.7 million.
It, did however, ultimately get to nearly $200 million worldwide by the time it fled theaters. If tracking and the dizzying pace of advance ticket sales are correct, 20th Century’s Prada 2 will earn nearly $200 million in its global debut alone. Tracking shows the movie opening anywhere from $68 million to $75 million in North America, while 20th and parent company Disney are sticking to $70 million to $75 million. Overseas, it’s expected to sew up a least a $100 million.
Among the few trends saving the box office in the post-COVID era are films that feed the nostalgia meter, and this fits the bill.
It’s been two decades since The Devil Wears Prada transformed into a sleeper box office hit earning $326.5 million on its way to becoming a cultural touchstone that spans generations. But reviving a long-dormant property isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s taken years to make the sequel a reality, since it meant convincing director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna to return, as well as stars Meryl Street, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. Not to mention that 20th Century Fox was absorbed by Disney, which cut ties with Elizabeth Gabler’s Fox 2000 label, home of Prada.
But Disney didn’t allow a wholesale brain drain to happen when taking Fox. Steve Asbell, who now runs 20th Century, is among the former Fox execs now at Disney.
Everyone on the Disney lot knew the sequel’s budget would be far higher than the original film’s price tag of $40 million before marketing because of salaries alone, but believed it was a risk worth taking. Prada 2 reportedly took a net $100 million to produce before marketing.
Released in 2006, the first The Devil Wears Prada was a rags-to-riches story of a young woman (Hathaway) who headed for the big city to be a serious journalist, only to become the assistant of a ruthless and legendary editor (Streep).
The film picks up years later as Streep’s Miranda Priestly once again faces the prospect of losing control as the editor or Runway. Hathaway’s Andy Sachs has achieved her dream of becoming a prize-winning journalist, but as the legacy media world collapses, finds herself working again at Runway.
“If you go into The Devil Wears Prada 2 looking for fierce fashion porn, bitchy put-downs and a fresh dose of Meryl Streep’s iconic performance as imperious Anna Wintour clone Miranda Priestly, you are unlikely to be disappointed,” reads THR chief film critic David Rooney’s review.
