The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens in theaters across the United States today, May 1, 2026. It took twenty years. It took the whole original cast agreeing simultaneously.
It took finding a story that was not just nostalgia but something worth telling. And it also took a world that had changed enough to give Miranda Priestly, Andy Sachs and Emily Charlton something new to fight about.
Twenty years after the original film defined a generation’s understanding of ambition, fashion and the particular terror of working for someone smarter and more demanding than you, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci are back, directed by David Frankel, written by Aline Brosh McKenna, and facing a media landscape that has done to magazines roughly what the fashion industry does to last season’s looks.
What Is Devil Wears Prada 2 About?
The sequel picks up approximately twenty years after the events of the original.
Andy Sachs is now a seasoned journalist who gets recruited back to Runway magazine as its Features Editor.
Miranda Priestly is still running Runway, but the magazine is in crisis, print media is dying, a scandal threatens the legacy she has spent her career building, and the corporate forces that have been consuming everything cultural and turning it into a cheaper, flatter version of itself have arrived at Runway’s door.
Emily Charlton has ascended to a senior executive position at Dior, or as the film frames it, at a luxury brand that happens to hold funding that could be the key to Runway’s survival.
The three women are drawn back together by the same institution that first connected them and then separated them, each carrying twenty years of choices, consequences and the particular emotional weight of a relationship that never quite resolves itself.
The film addresses something specific about the current moment in media: the “enshittification” of culture, the corporate repackaging of storied institutions into cheaper, more efficient, less valuable versions of themselves.
Runway faces that fate and the people who built their identities around it must decide what they are willing to do to prevent it.
Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, who wrote the original, described the creative process in an interview with the Walt Disney Company:
“It’s not meant to just be a love letter to the fans. It had to be something meaty, a story we could really talk about how the world has changed.”
Director David Frankel added, “It’s not nostalgia. It’s curiosity.”
The Full Cast
The four principals are all back. Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly. Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs. Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton. Stanley Tucci as Nigel. Tracie Thoms returns as Lily. Tibor Feldman returns as Irv Ravitz.
The new additions are substantial. Kenneth Branagh plays Miranda’s husband. Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, Simone Ashley, B.J. Novak as Jay Ravitz, Pauline Chalamet, Caleb Hearon, Patrick Brammall, Conrad Ricamora and Rachel Bloom all join the ensemble.
Lady Gaga appears in the film as well, she also contributes an original song called “Runway,” recorded with Doechii and released April 9, described as having a house pop style and featured prominently in the third trailer.
One casting decision has drawn criticism. Helen J. Shen plays Jin Chao, Andy’s new assistant.
A promotional clip released April 16 featuring Andy and Jin Chao generated immediate backlash when critics and online observers pointed out that the character’s name bears phonetic resemblance to “ching chong,” a racial slur historically directed at Asian people.
The film’s producers have not publicly addressed the controversy.
Sydney Sweeney had been cast in a cameo role that was ultimately cut from the final film.
The Numbers Behind The Marketing Campaign
The film has generated marketing records that suggest the cultural appetite for this sequel was substantial regardless of what critics ultimately said about it.
The first full trailer, released February 1, 2026, accumulated 222 million views within its first 24 hours, the most-watched trailer in 20th Century Studios’ history.
The earlier teaser, released during the Grammy Awards on January 31, was reportedly the most-viewed comedy trailer in fifteen years with 181.5 million views in its first 24 hours.
The film’s third and final trailer dropped April 6, featuring the preview of the Lady Gaga and Doechii collaboration.
The marketing campaign included brand partnerships with Dior, Mercedes-Benz, Diet Coke, Grey Goose, L’Oréal and Valentino Fragrance, a roster that is itself a kind of fashion world statement about what The Devil Wears Prada 2 represents as a cultural event beyond the movie.
Streep and Hathaway traveled to South Korea to promote the film. Three premieres were held, New York’s Lincoln Center on April 20 (streamed live on Disney+ and Hulu), London on April 22, and Tokyo on April 24.
What Are The Critics Saying?
The Devil Wears Prada 2 has a 79 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 120 critics’ reviews and a Metacritic score of 61 out of 100, indicating “generally favorable” reviews.
The consensus that emerges from the reviews is consistent, it is not as good as the original, but it is not a disappointment, and the performances, particularly Hathaway and Blunt, are the reason to see it.
Variety called it “breezily diverting fan service” and described it as functioning “less as a follow-up than as a kind of tribute act, albeit one featuring all the original talent.”
The review acknowledged the intelligence and craft of the production while noting it is difficult to imagine fans “cherishing repeat viewings.”
The Seattle Times was more pointed, describing the film as “flat Champagne. Maybe worth drinking in a pinch, but unsatisfying.”
The Mercury News said it “feels like it came off the rack before it was ready” and noted that it was about “as groundbreaking as florals in spring.”
Two specific criticisms recur across multiple reviews. The first is the writing, the script from Brosh McKenna, who wrote the sharp original, has not matched that film’s acidity and comic precision in the sequel.
The second is the visual presentation: director of photography Florian Ballhaus returns from the original, but reviews have noted that a grayish visual quality, what critics have called the “Netflix look,” has replaced the crisp, gleaming aesthetic that made the original’s fashion world feel genuinely aspirational.
Variety made the observation that Miranda Priestly herself “would certainly have some words on this front.”
The positives are consistent too. The chemistry among the four leads is real and resumed easily.
Hathaway and Blunt in particular are singled out as pleasures. The costumes by Molly Rogers are described as spectacular.
The mere experience of spending time with these characters again, in a film made with intelligence and respect, is characterized as more satisfying than the summer comedy marketplace typically offers.
Why Did A Sequel Take 20 Years?
The original Devil Wears Prada, released in the summer of 2006, grossed $326.7 million worldwide on a $41 million budget.
It finished second at the box office its opening weekend to Superman Returns, a detail Variety’s review notes with appropriate irony given how much the sequel’s cultural staying power has outlasted that superhero film’s.
The original became one of the defining films of its generation, particularly for women who recognized in it something true about ambition, mentorship, identity and the cost of wanting things.
For years, a sequel seemed both commercially obvious and creatively unnecessary. Streep and Hathaway were both publicly hesitant about revisiting the characters.
When development was finally announced in July 2024, all four leads, Streep, Hathaway, Blunt and Tucci, signed on simultaneously, which was itself remarkable given the difficulty of scheduling four Oscar-winning or nominated actors with busy separate careers.
What broke the hesitation was not money or nostalgia but a story. Brosh McKenna has said the seismic shift in media, the death of print, the streaming consolidation, the flattening of culture into cheaper and more efficient packages, provided the fertile ground that made a sequel feel not opportunistic but necessary.
Twenty years after Miranda Priestly commanded an industry, that industry is fighting for its life. That context made the reunion feel earned rather than cynical.
The Opening Day Context
The Devil Wears Prada 2 lands on May 1, 2026, the date that was originally held by Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday before that film shifted to December 19.
The move gave the Devil Wears Prada sequel a prominent kickoff position in Disney’s 2026 theatrical calendar, which also includes Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu on May 22, Toy Story 5 on June 19, and the live-action Moana on July 10.
It opens today. The full cast is back. The song with Lady Gaga is on the soundtrack.
The critics have been mixed but not unkind. And twenty years of cultural affection for the characters, for Miranda’s glare, for Andy’s transformation, for the cerulean sweater speech, for Nigel’s world-weary wisdom and Emily’s perfect fury, will fill theaters in a way that critical consensus alone cannot explain.
