When The Devil Wears Prada earned over $326 million worldwide in 2006, it did something unusual for a fashion comedy: it became genuinely important. The film wasn’t just a commercial success—it introduced a character so fully realized that Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly entered the cultural vocabulary as shorthand for a particular kind of power. That the franchise is returning now, nearly two decades later, isn’t a nostalgic cash-in. It’s an opportunity to revisit a world that changed dramatically, both on screen and in the real world that inspired it.
David Frankel, who directed the original film, returns to helm The Devil Wears Prada 2. His track record shows a director who understands ensemble comedy with depth. Before Prada, Frankel made The Devil Wears Prada itself, which won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and earned Streep a nomination for Best Lead Actress across the Academy Awards, BAFTA, SAG, and Critics’ Choice. After the original’s success, he continued working in similar territory—he directed Marley & Me, which mixed humor with genuine emotional stakes, and Hope Springs, which proved he could handle complex character work with mature actors. His style emphasizes character relationships over spectacle, which matters when you’re making a sequel that doesn’t need explosions or action set pieces.
The cast reunion itself signals what this film wants to do. Streep and Anne Hathaway return to their original roles, but the interesting addition is Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton, Hathaway’s character’s replacement as Miranda’s assistant in the first film. Blunt doesn’t replace Hathaway here—instead, the synopsis positions Charlton as a rival executive now controlling advertising dollars that Priestly needs. This isn’t a nostalgic recapitulation. It’s a structural inversion. The assistant has become the obstacle.
Streep’s career between 2006 and now tells its own story. She’s played everything from a conservative political candidate in Mamma Mia! to a complicated mother in Kramer vs. Kramer revivals of sentiment. But Miranda Priestly remains one of her most quotable roles. She has a way of delivering cutting lines that would sound cruel from anyone else but read as clarity from her. When she explained cerulean blue—explaining how a color filtered down from high fashion to discount racks—she wasn’t just acting in a scene. She was explaining how systems of taste work.
Anne Hathaway spent the years after Prada taking on heavier material. She earned a supporting actress Oscar for Les Misérables in 2013. She’s done dramatic work in The Intern, played Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, and moved between serious roles and lighter comedies. Her Andy Sachs was defined by earnestness—the character who arrived at Vogue believing that fashion didn’t matter, then gradually understood that every choice we make means something. Returning to that character now, presumably at a different stage of her career, allows for a different kind of performance.
Emily Blunt brings a different energy. Her film career has spanned The Devil Wears Prada supporting role, action films like the Mission: Impossible sequels, and dramatic work in Sicario and Oppenheimer. She has presence—there’s an intelligence in how she inhabits roles that prevents her from ever feeling like window dressing. Casting her as a rival rather than just a returning supporting player suggests the sequel understands that its characters have continued to develop beyond the original film.
The original film’s premise—a woman caught between ambition and authenticity in the fashion world—worked because it reflected real tensions. The fashion industry actually does work the way Miranda describes it. But the world has changed significantly since 2006.
Magazine publishing, the industry at the film’s heart, has experienced genuine decline. The original Prada was set in a world where magazines still held enormous cultural power. Print advertising was where luxury brands spent serious money. That’s simply no longer true. A sequel that actually engages with this shift—where Miranda must navigate a world that has fundamentally changed—has potential to say something real rather than just recreating past dynamics.
20th Century Studios, the production company, has resources and experience with franchise filmmaking. The studio has successfully revived legacy properties before. The decision to bring back the original creative team rather than starting fresh suggests confidence in what made the original work. Frankel isn’t being replaced by a hot younger director trying to “modernize” the concept. He’s returning to territory he knows.
The production began at the end of June 2025, with a scheduled release date of May 1, 2026. For a sequel to take this long in development—nearly twenty years after the original—either suggests careful attention to the script or the complex scheduling required to bring together three major actresses. More likely, it’s both. You don’t make this film quickly. You make it right.
What matters about The Devil Wears Prada 2 isn’t speculation about whether it will work. What matters is that it exists at all as more than a brand extension. The original film earned its place in cinema by understanding something true about ambition, taste, and the cost of excellence. A sequel that returns to that complexity, that allows its characters to have changed and grown, that engages with how the world they inhabited has transformed—that could be valuable. Not as nostalgia, but as a genuine continuation.
