Meryl Streep<\/a>, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci returned for \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2,\u201d which takes place 20 years after the original. Lauren Weisberg\u2019s 2003 novel, a roman \u00e0 clef about working as an assistant to Vogue boss Anna Wintour, was the basis of the first film. The second movie, which brought back the original director David Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, picks up as Hathaway\u2019s Andy Sachs returns to Runway magazine as a features editor under Streep\u2019s all-powerful editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly. Reviews were mixed but audiences (76% of whom were women) awarded the film an enthusiastic \u201cA-\u201c grade on CinemaScore exit polls. <\/p>\n\n\tHere, Variety unpacks five reasons that \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d is already such a box office sensation.<\/p>\n
\t\tNostalgia? At the box office? Groundbreaking\u2026\t<\/p>\n
\n\tOver the past 20 years, \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada\u201d has become a cultural touchstone. That\u2019s thanks to a script with endlessly quotable lines (\u201cThat\u2019s all\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m one stomach flu away from my goal weight\u201d among them) and a cast with not one, but four Hollywood A-listers. Reviving a long-in-the-tooth property doesn\u2019t always work. (See: \u201cIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,\u201d \u201cKarate Kid: Legends\u201d or \u201cZoolander 2.\u201d) Brosh McKenna and Frankel succeeded because they didn\u2019t just rehash the first film; they made the story relevant for today. A chance to reflect the changing state of journalism \u2014 media looks completely different now compared to 2006 \u2014 felt like a timely reason to revisit the hallowed halls of Runway.<\/p>\n
\t\tWas it us, Meryl?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tMoviegoers were missing Meryl. The most celebrated actor of her generation (she\u2019s been nominated for a record 21 Oscar nominations and should have earned a 22nd for \u201cMamma Mia\u201d) has been M.I.A. from multiplexes. Other than some voice work, Streep hasn\u2019t been seen on the big screen since director Greta Gerwig\u2019s \u201cLittle Women\u201d in 2019. As for her last starring role, that was nearly a decade ago in Steven Spielberg\u2019s 2017 newspaper drama \u201cThe Post.\u201d Then she turned to streaming for Steven Soderbergh\u2019s cruise-set dramedy \u201cLet Them All Talk\u201d on HBO Max, and the Broadway adaptation \u201cThe Prom\u201d and Adam McKay\u2019s sci-fi satire \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d on Netflix. Now \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d marks the biggest debut of Streep\u2019s career, above \u201cMamma Mia\u201d ($27.5 million) and the 2018 sequel ($34.9 million) and \u201cInto the Woods\u201d ($34 million). After too long a hiatus, the message is clear: Meryl, come back to the multiplex!<\/p>\n
\t\tA global marketing runway \t<\/p>\n
\n\tDisney launched a major global publicity campaign, one of the studio\u2019s biggest in recent memory, to ensure that everyone on the planet knew about the existence of the \u201cDevil Wears Prada\u201d sequel. That involved the \u201cGiant Red Heel Tour,\u201d where, as the name suggests, giant red heels popped up at major landmarks around the country; a physical copy of Runway magazine\u2019s Spring issue; as well as a trailer that became one of the most viewed of last year. Then Disney enlisted a dizzying number of promotional partners, which together made for inescapable \u201cPrada\u201d push. They included Diet Coke, Dior, Google, Grey Goose, Lancome, L\u2019Oreal Paris, Mercedes, Smartwater, Samsung, Starbucks, Zillow and Tiffany & Co. That\u2019s (not even close to) all.<\/p>\n
\t\tGirls just want to have fun\t<\/p>\n
\n\tLike \u201cBarbie\u201d and \u201cWicked\u201d before it, \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d benefitted as the moviegoing event of the year for women. And cinema operators went full-throttle on the fun. Cinemark hosted a \u201cNowhere to Wear It\u201d party, encouraging patrons to don the gowns, boots and bags that were must-haves at the store but went unworn after the price tags were cut off. Regal crafted two themed cocktails \u2014 \u201cEverybody Wants This\u201d (a vibrant red cosmopolitan) and \u201cGroundbreaking\u201d (described as a \u201cmodern twist\u201d on the espresso martini) \u2014 and set up a \u201cglam station\u201d with skincare and cosmetics products vending machines. Flix Brewhouse offered a \u201cGirl Dinner\u201d of the TikTok-famous combo: Truffle parmesan fries with aioli and a chicken Caesar salad. Then there\u2019s the \u201cButter Birkin\u201d popcorn bucket that almost instantly sold out at AMC Theatres and other chains. All of these festivities were key in \u201cPrada\u201d feeling like a leave-the-home-worthy extravaganza.<\/p>\n
\t\tComedy can work on the big screen\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAmong several benchmarks, \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d notched the biggest domestic debut for a traditional comedy since 2015\u2019s \u201cPitch Perfect\u201d ($69 million, not adjusted for inflation), per the New York Times<\/a>. When the original \u201cPrada\u201d was released, funny films weren\u2019t such a rarity; \u201cBorat,\u201d \u201cNight at the Museum,\u201d \u201cThe Break Up\u201d and \u201cTalladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby\u201d were major earners in 2006. Since then, Hollywood has mostly abandoned the genre, at least theatrically, in favor of superhero epics and all things horror. But the state of the world is bleak, and audiences are clearly in need of laughter. So thank goodness for Streep\u2019s master class in physical comedy when Miranda struggles to hang up her own coat, to say nothing of the new bon mots from Blunt\u2019s Emily Charlton (\u201cMay the bridges I burn light my way\u201d) or Tucci\u2019s Nigel Kipling (\u201cLook what T.J. Maxx dragged in\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are movie theaters the new black? \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d certainly made a compelling case that cinemas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,30883,327,100467],"class_list":{"0":"post-468542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-meryl-streep","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-the-devil-wears-prada-2"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116518504659114101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}