Eighteen years after Meryl Streep first terrorized assistants as Miranda Priestly, the fashion world's most feared editor is back — and audiences are showing up in spectacular numbers.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened to a stunning $223 million worldwide this weekend, with $77 million coming from domestic theaters. Those are the kind of numbers that make studio executives weak in the knees, and they raise a fascinating question: When did decades-later sequels become reliable box office gold?
The answer, of course, is that they didn't. For every Top Gun: Maverick, there's a Coming 2 America. For every billion-dollar Avatar sequel, there's... well, actually, James Cameron seems to have cracked the code on that one.
What makes Devil Wears Prada 2 work where so many legacy sequels stumble is that it understands what made the original resonate. This isn't Meryl Streep doing a victory lap through familiar territory — though Deadline reports she's as commanding as ever. The film reportedly tackles the seismic shift in media from print to digital, a meta-commentary on the very magazine industry that the first film immortalized.
The original Devil Wears Prada opened to $27 million domestically in 2006 and went on to earn $326 million worldwide. Adjusted for inflation, we're looking at roughly the same opening weekend performance — which is actually remarkable. In an era where theatrical releases struggle to compete with streaming, a fashion-industry dramedy is matching Fast & Furious numbers.
Hollywood has been trying to crack the "dormant IP revival" formula for years. Some believed the secret was nostalgia, others thought it was bringing back the original cast. Devil Wears Prada 2 suggests the real answer might be simpler: make a good movie that has something new to say.
The film's success sends a clear message to studios sitting on libraries of beloved properties from the 1990s and 2000s. But here's hoping they take away the right lesson. The challenge isn't resurrecting old favorites — it's giving them a reason to exist beyond quarterly earnings reports.
