Audiences Were Ready for The Devil Wears Prada 2

Breaking: The entire globe cares about the slow decline of the publishing industry and encroaching techno-oligarchy! Nothing else could explain the boffo box office for The Devil Wears Prada 2, right? Right?

The legasequel slightly exceeded domestic expectations, earning $77 million instead of $73. But the international box office was where things really got interesting. The Devil Wears Prada 2 was No. 1 in most markets. It was No. 2 in France (mad the big Fashion Week sequence was in Milan this time?), Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, behind Michael. And in Japan, it was behind hometown hero The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. 

The film’s strong performance is a win for Meryl Streep heads as well as fans of women in general. According to Deadline, “a female-skewing movie [leading] the first weekend of summer” is unprecedented. Or at least hasn’t been a thing since what Streep lamented as the Marvel-izing of all cinema. A female-driven blockbuster to start the summer? It actually is groundbreaking. DWP2 is also a career-best opening weekend for both Streep and Emily Blunt. For Streep, her next-best opening was Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, with a $90 mil total. And Prada 2 beats Blunt’s Oppenheimer, which opened globally at $176 million. With the dueling themes of fashion opulence and the death of journalism, DWP2 is kind of a self-contained Barbenheimer, when you think about it.