1 billion dollars? During the summer movie season? groundbreaking.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 grossed $676 million worldwide, bringing the series’ total box office revenue to over $1 billion. Add to that the box office gross of the original film in 2004, which finished with $326 million not adjusted for inflation.
This is a remarkable milestone that can be achieved in just two films, especially in the post-corona era. Disney spent about $100 million to make the second Prada and $80 million to sell it, which would generate a sizable profit.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 was released in early May and grossed $77 million in North America and $233 million worldwide over the weekend. This is almost three times higher than the original start. The comedy sequel continued to command attention on the big screen, grossing $217 million in North America and $458 million overseas, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office, third-highest overseas, and fourth-highest worldwide.
The Devil Wears Prada is based on Lauren Weisberg’s 2003 novel and is a romance-a-clef about working as an assistant to Vogue boss Anna Wintour. The second film, which reunites original director David Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, takes place 20 years after Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs returns to Runway magazine as features editor under Meryl Streep’s all-powerful editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly.
“The Devil Wears Prada” has been a cultural touchstone for the past two decades, but reviving a popular production doesn’t necessarily translate to box office success. (Legendary sequels like Indiana Jones and the Legend, and Zoolander 2 learned that the hard way.) The Devil Wears Prada 2 succeeds by not only leaning into nostalgia, but also by making the story relevant to today. Additionally, the sequel film reunited the original cast of Streep, Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci.
