Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: The Devil Wears Prada 2 Is a Joyful, Big-Hearted Return

Twenty years is a long time to wait for a rematch, and this one was worth it. The Devil Wears Prada 2 premiered in New York on April 20, 2026, opened in United States theaters on May 1 through 20th Century Studios, and went on to gross about $693.5 million worldwide on a $100 million budget – the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2026. It has been streaming since July 29 on Disney+ and Hulu, which is why so many people are discovering, or happily rediscovering, it right now.

The first film cost $35 million to make back in 2006 and became a touchstone people still quote at brunch. A sequel had to justify itself. On the evidence of these numbers – and of a $77 million opening weekend in North America across 4,150 locations, with a further $156.6 million internationally that same weekend – it did.

The setup: power, reversed

The story, loosely drawn from Lauren Weisberger’s sequel novel Revenge Wears Prada, picks up two decades on. Miranda Priestly still runs Runway, but the ground under glossy magazines has shifted. Print advertising has thinned, attention has scattered, and Runway’s survival is a genuine question. Here is the elegant twist. The advertising money Miranda needs most sits with a luxury group where her former assistant Emily Charlton is now a high-powered executive. The assistant has the leverage. The editor has to ask.

Andy Sachs, now an established editor and journalist, is drawn back into Miranda’s orbit to help her navigate a media world neither of them grew up in. Director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna, who made the original together, shape that reversal with a light touch. The film never stops being fun to watch people be brilliant at their jobs – it just asks what brilliance is worth when the job itself changes shape.

Four reunions, all of them earned

Meryl Streep returns as Miranda, and the performance is a small masterclass in economy. A pause does the work of a speech. A lowered voice clears a room faster than shouting ever could. Yet there is something new underneath – a woman taking the measure of an era that no longer bends automatically toward her, and deciding, scene by scene, how to bend it back.

Anne Hathaway’s Andy is the film’s warm centre. She plays her as someone who got out, built a life, and finds – to her own surprise – that loyalty still pulls. Emily Blunt, as Emily, gets the sequel’s juiciest arc. The once-frantic assistant is now the executive across the table, immaculate and formidable, and Blunt clearly relishes every second of the promotion. Stanley Tucci’s Nigel remains the office’s conscience and its best company, the person who can say the true thing and make it land as kindness.

New faces fit the family well. Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu and Kenneth Branagh join the ensemble and bring fresh energy to Runway’s orbit without crowding the reunion audiences came for. Filmed in Manhattan and Milan, with additional work in Newark, the production gives the cast real fashion capitals to play in – and it shows in every frame of street, showroom and front row.

An audience that showed up smiling

Exit polls told a happy story. Women made up about 76 percent of opening-weekend ticket buyers, and 74 percent said they would definitely recommend the film to friends. Critics were generally positive, and word of mouth did the rest. There is a lesson in that for studios chasing four-quadrant everything – a film that knows exactly who it is for can still play very big indeed. Readers who enjoy an underdog with perfect timing may also like I Play Rocky, the underdog story of the year, another 2026 release built on heart rather than spectacle.

Why it works at home, too

Some comedies shrink on a smaller screen. This one settles in. The pleasures are in faces, timing and throwaway lines you catch properly on a second viewing – and at roughly two hours, rated PG-13, it is an easy film to press play on with friends who each have a favourite scene to wait for. New Yorkers pairing it with a big weekend out can borrow ideas from the best NYC events this weekend, October 23-25, then come home to Miranda. A reasonable plan.

Verdict? A joyful, big-hearted return that earns its place next to the original. Streep is sublime, Hathaway grounds the glamour in real feeling, Blunt steals scenes she once had to survive, and Frankel keeps the whole confection moving. Groundbreaking? No. Utterly pleasurable, beautifully played, and built to be rewatched? Absolutely. That is all.

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