Twenty years after Miranda Priestly first ordered her coffee, the fashion world has proven it still commands the box office. The Devil Wears Prada 2, now in its seventh week in theaters, has pushed the franchise past $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales — a milestone that few sequels to mid-budget comedies have ever reached.
The sequel has grossed $676 million globally, including $217.9 million domestically, against a production budget of $100 million before marketing costs. Combined with the original 2006 film’s $326.5 million lifetime gross, the franchise now sits above the $1 billion mark.
The film reunites the complete original cast — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci — along with director David Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, picking up two decades later as Hathaway’s Andy Sachs returns to Runway magazine as a features editor under Streep’s imperious Miranda Priestly.
Nearly 75% of opening weekend crowds were women, according to PostTrak, and that audience loyalty has sustained the film’s box office legs for weeks. Box office analyst David A. Gross noted that “very few dramedies do this kind of business once, let alone a second time that’s bigger.”
Critics offered mixed verdicts, but audiences were far more generous. The film earned an 87% Rotten Tomatoes Verified Moviegoers score, a 4.5 out of 5.0 PostTrak score, and an “A-” CinemaScore.
Internationally, the film has found particularly strong traction in Europe. The UK leads all territories with $45.8 million, followed by Italy at $37.3 million — where it ranks as the top non-local release — and Germany at $33.2 million.
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Marketing analyst Brett Schneider, who teaches courses on fandom at UCLA, points to something deeper than nostalgia: “There’s a broader reaction happening to hyper-optimized digital culture,” he said. Industry observers have framed the film’s success as a proof point for what Hollywood now calls IP maximization — the strategy of waiting for an original film’s audience to age into higher disposable income before reviving it with the same cast.
The sequel’s run has also indirectly exposed how far superhero films have fallen, having already outgrossed several major comic-book titles that once dominated global charts. Disney, which released the film through 20th Century Studios, opted to open its summer season with Prada 2 rather than a Marvel title — a bet that paid off decisively.
