The Devil Wears Prada 2 · reception & legacy

2026 · David Frankel

How The Devil Wears Prada 2 has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Critics shrugged at it in May 2026 — 'flat champagne' was the emblematic pan — while audiences handed it an A- CinemaScore and a $77M domestic opening, roughly triple the original's debut. Two months on, it's settled as the year's great critic-proof crowd-pleaser, the fourth-biggest grosser of 2026.

What's debated

The fight is whether it's a genuinely earned reunion or the peak (and maybe last gasp) of Hollywood's millennial-nostalgia IP machine — the fan-vs-critic gap was a chasm from day one.

Its footprint

It was a cultural event a full year before release: the summer 2025 NYC shoot became a rolling public fashion show, with paparazzi outfit photos dissected daily and Anne Hathaway's first-look Andy pic breaking the internet. Bonus lore: Hathaway tumbled down set stairs mid-take without ever letting go of her bagel — instantly a meme.

Where it stands

Too new for canon — right now it's the definitive girls-night-out event movie of 2026, drafting off the original's comfort-classic status ('that's all').

★ Did you know? The sequel exists because Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt reunited onstage at the SAG Awards and traded Prada in-jokes — director David Frankel has said that viral moment set the wheels turning. Also: Hathaway's favourite costume, a Phoebe Philo look, was cut from the film — she joked it was lucky the paparazzi photographed it anyway.