Gird your loins, fashion fans and casual moviegoers alike: The Devil Wears Prada 2 has strutted into theaters with a staggering $233m (£171m, A$323m) worldwide opening weekend, powered overwhelmingly by women. The sequel earned $77m in North America and $156.6m internationally, bumping the Michael biopic to second place despite Michael's respectable $54m second weekend (down only 44%). According to PostTrak exit polls, women made up about 76% of ticket buyers, and 74% said they would “definitely recommend” the film - presumably while adjusting their sunglasses and walking away from a slow-motion explosion.
Critics were mixed on the sequel, which finds Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs once again navigating the razor-sharp world of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly at a much-depleted Runway magazine. But audiences didn't care: the film scored the highest opening weekend for any Streep movie, surpassing Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again's $90m worldwide debut in 2018. It also gave Emily Blunt her biggest international and global launch, topping even Oppenheimer's $180.4m worldwide opening - which, one imagines, is a conversation she enjoys having at parties.
The sequel cost a reported $100m to produce, nearly triple the first film's $35m budget. Director David Frankel explained to the Associated Press: “By the time you finish paying all the biggest movie stars in the world, you still end up with basically the same budget for making the movie as we did the first one.” Translation: the cast's salaries alone could fund a small country's GDP, but the movie itself still feels like a bargain.
Streep, Hathaway, Blunt, and Stanley Tucci have been on a fashion-forward global publicity blitz, hitting Tokyo, London, and New York in outfits that likely cost more than your rent. Even Anna Wintour - the real-life inspiration for Miranda Priestly - got involved, appearing with Hathaway on the Oscars stage and co-starring with Streep on the cover of Vogue. Because when you're making a movie about the devil, why not invite the actual devil to the premiere?
The first The Devil Wears Prada opened in June 2006 and earned over $326m worldwide (not adjusted for inflation), cementing its place in pop culture with eternally quotable lines like “gird your loins,” “groundbreaking,” and “that’s all.” The sequel's debut kicks off Hollywood's crucial summer movie season - an 18-week corridor through Labor Day that usually accounts for about 40% of the annual box office. While Marvel blockbusters typically own this weekend, Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore called the Prada-and-Michael combo “a really solid weekend” that “more than makes up for the fact that there’s not a Marvel movie.” Indeed, Prada did better than last year's summer kickoff Marvel film, Thunderbolts - proving that sometimes, a well-tailored revenge fantasy beats a man in spandex.
The North American box office is running about 14% up from 2025, with roughly $2.8bn in domestic ticket sales to date. So grab your stilettos and your wallet: the devil is back, and she's cashing checks.