David Frankel’s follow-up to The Devil Wears Prada is looking like a box office fashionista all these years later — good enough, in fact, to launch the summer moviegoing season.
The movie officially came on tracking Thursday, with one leading research film predicting it could earn as much as $66 million when it opens domestically over the May 1-3 weekend. That’s a strong number for a non-family title targeting females of all ages. Generally speaking, fanboy titles mark the start of the season and, specifically, Marvel superhero pics.
Thursday’s tracking for Lionsgate’s highly anticipated Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, also remained strong two weeks ahead of its domestic debut on April 24. Those with access to the data believe it could near or cross $60 million in its first weekend. Universal is handling the movie internationally.
From 20th Century and Disney, the female-fueled Devil Wears Prada 2 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 first film, 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. Blunt and Stanley Tucci also return for the sequel. Frankel recently 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 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 perfect fit in solving its problem.
In 2023, Universal — which 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 pic, stumbled badly in launching to just under $30 million.
Disney and 20th Century are betting on Prada 2 riding wave of nostalgia and attracting Gen Zers and millennials (both demos are avid moviegoers).
Revisiting her role in Prada has made Hathaway aware of the impact she’s had on these generations (she is also helping revive Disney’s 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.”
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