David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 is looking like a box office fashionista all these years later — good enough, in fact, to officially herald the beginning of the summer moviegoing season.
From 20th Century and Disney, the female-fueled film will strut into theaters two decades after the original film, starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, became a runaway hit at the box office in June 2006 on its way to earning nearly $327 million globally, not adjusted for inflation. Domestically, the comedy grossed $124.7 million to rest at No. 14 on the list of the year’s top-grossing films ahead of best-picture winner The Departed.
The movie, about an idealistic young journalist who becomes the assistant to a ruthless fashion editor, also solidified Hathaway’s rising star status, as well as helping to introduce Emily Blunt to U.S. audiences.
The three actresses and Stanley Tucci return for the sequel, releasing on May 1. In the new film, director Frankel teased to Harper’s that “the characters are obviously 20 years along in their careers and at very different places, and the world of media is in a very different place.”
“Andy has had a career in journalism that mirrors a lot of people’s experiences in journalism these days,” he said, adding that it “is a movie about a woman in her 40s … [that’s] about how you make peace with the world as you find it, not the world that you wish existed.”
For decades, Hollywood has tacked an extra month onto the actual summer season by opening an all-audience tentpole at the beginning of May. By the time Prada came around, the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe had begun claiming the first weekend of May (or the last weekend of April) on a consistent basis.
The pandemic, along with the labor strikes, changed the landscape, however. Production delays prompted Marvel titles such as Deadpool & Wolverine to relocate from the beginning of summer 2025 to July of that year (Thunderbolts* opened in its place). And Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday was once set to open this year on May 1, but now won’t arrive until December.
Disney, home of both Marvel and 20th Century, decided that the Prada sequel was a good fit in solving its problem.
In 2023, Universal — which also used the Fast & Furious franchise to kick off summer — decided to begin the summer season with the release of The Fall Guy, starring Blunt and Ryan Gosling. But the movie, billed both as a romantic comedy and an action, stumbled badly in launching to just under $30 million.
Revisiting her role in Prada has made Hathaway aware of the impact she’s had on this generation of kids. She is also helping revive The Princess Diaries series.
“I feel like I was, like, everybody’s babysitter,” Hathaway previously said. “And I was a child when I made The Princess Diaries. I was still a 22-year-old mess of a human when I made The Devil Wears Prada. And so, we’ve grown up together, and I’m so happy for them and how their lives are unfolding. Like, this crazy thing where people just graduate from high school and they just send me their graduation announcements. People send me their wedding invitations. It’s so very sweet.”
