5 Reasons ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ Slayed at the Box Office, From Nostalgia to Meryl Streep’s Big Screen Return

Are movie theaters the new black?

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” certainly made a compelling case that cinemas are once again en vogue after the long-anticipated sequel opened to $77 million in North America and $233 million globally over the weekend. Those ticket sales rank as the second-best worldwide start of the year, ahead of the Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” ($217 million) and behind Universal’s animated “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ($372.5 million). They loom way above the start of 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada,” which launched to $27.5 million, not adjusted for inflation.

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Disney’s investment in more “Prada” — the studio spent roughly $100 million to make and reportedly $80 million to market the movie — is already proving to be money well spent. The follow-up is expected to outgross the original’s lifetime haul of $326 million by the end of the month.

“This is a sensational opening for a comedy-drama,” says David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe. “Very few dramedies do this kind of business once, let alone a second time that’s bigger.”

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci returned for “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which takes place 20 years after the original. Lauren Weisberg’s 2003 novel, a roman à clef about working as an assistant to Vogue boss Anna Wintour, was the basis of the first film. The second movie, which brought back the original director Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, picks up as Hathaway’s Andy Sachs returns to Runway magazine as a features editor under Streep’s all-powerful editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly. Reviews were mixed, but audiences (76% of whom were women) awarded the film an enthusiastic “A-“ grade on CinemaScore exit polls.

Here, Variety unpacks five reasons that “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is already such a box office sensation.

Nostalgia? At the box office? Groundbreaking…

Over the past 20 years, “The Devil Wears Prada” has become a cultural touchstone. That’s thanks to a script with endlessly quotable lines (“That’s all” and “I’m one stomach flu away from my goal weight” among them) and a cast with not one, but four Hollywood A-listers. Reviving a long-in-the-tooth property doesn’t always work. (See: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Karate Kid: Legends” or “Zoolander 2.”) Brosh McKenna and Frankel succeeded because they didn’t just rehash the first film; they made the story relevant for today. A chance to reflect the changing state of journalism — media looks completely different now compared to 2006 — felt like a timely reason to revisit the hallowed halls of Runway.

Was it us, Meryl?

Moviegoers were missing Meryl. The most celebrated actor of her generation (she’s been nominated for a record 21 Oscar nominations and should have earned a 22nd for “Mamma Mia”) has been M.I.A. from multiplexes. Other than some voice work, Streep hasn’t been seen on the big screen since director Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” in 2019. As for her last starring role, that was nearly a decade ago in Steven Spielberg’s 2017 newspaper drama “The Post.” Then she turned to streaming for Steven Soderbergh’s cruise-set dramedy “Let Them All Talk” on HBO Max, and the Broadway adaptation “The Prom” and Adam McKay’s sci-fi satire “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix. Now “The Devil Wears Prada 2” marks the biggest debut of Streep’s career, above “Mamma Mia” ($27.5 million) and the 2018 sequel ($34.9 million) and “Into the Woods” ($34 million). After too long a hiatus, the message is clear: Meryl, come back to the multiplex!

A global marketing runway

Disney launched a major global publicity campaign, one of the studio’s biggest in recent memory, to ensure that everyone on the planet knew about the existence of the “Devil Wears Prada” sequel. That involved the “Giant Red Heel Tour,” where, as the name suggests, giant red heels popped up at major landmarks around the country; a physical copy of Runway magazine’s Spring issue; as well as a trailer that became one of the most viewed of last year. Then Disney enlisted a dizzying number of promotional partners, which together made for inescapable “Prada” promo. They included Diet Coke, Dior, Google, Grey Goose, Lancome, L’Oreal Paris, Mercedes, Smartwater, Samsung, Starbucks, Zillow and Tiffany & Co. That’s (not even close to) all.

Girls just want to have fun

Like “Barbie” and “Wicked” before it, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” benefitted as the moviegoing event of the year for women. And cinema operators went full-throttle on the fun. Cinemark hosted a “Nowhere to Wear It” party, encouraging patrons to don the gowns, boots and bags that were must-haves at the store but went unworn after the price tags were cut off. Regal crafted two themed cocktails — “Everybody Wants This” (a vibrant red cosmopolitan) and “Groundbreaking” (described as a “modern twist” on the espresso martini) — and set up a “glam station” with skincare and cosmetics products vending machines. Flix Brewhouse offered a “Girl Dinner” of the TikTok famous combo: Truffle parmesan fries with aioli and a chicken Caesar salad. Then there’s the “Butter Birkin” popcorn bucket that almost instantly sold out at AMC Theatres and other chains. All of these festivities were key in “Prada” feeling like a leave-the-home-worthy extravaganza.

Comedy can work on the big screen

Among several benchmarks, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” notched the biggest domestic debut for a traditional comedy since 2015’s “Pitch Perfect” ($69 million, not adjusted for inflation), per the New York Times. When the original “Prada” was released, funny films weren’t such a rarity; “Borat,” “Night at the Museum,” “The Break Up” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” were major earners in 2006. Since then, Hollywood has mostly abandoned the genre, at least theatrically, in favor of superhero epics and all things horror. But the state of the world is bleak, and audiences are clearly in need of laughter. So thank goodness for Streep’s master class in physical comedy when Miranda struggles to hang up her own coat, to say nothing of the new bon mots from Blunt’s Emily Charlton (“May the bridges I burn light my way”) or Tucci’s Nigel Kipling (“Look what T.J. Maxx dragged in”).