The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened to $77 million domestic and $156.6 million international for a $233.6 million global weekend — the largest opening of any Disney/20th Century release this year and roughly three times the original's 2006 debut adjusted for inflation [1][2]. Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci all return; David Frankel directed from Aline Brosh McKenna's screenplay, picking up two decades after the first.

The paper carried Streep's declined Met Gala invite into the weekend. Anna Wintour chairs Monday night's Met Gala in person. Streep, who plays the Miranda Priestly character built on Wintour, will not attend. The two have appeared together on the cover of Vogue in service of the film and on the Oscars stage in service of the studio campaign — but they will not share the Met Gala steps [3].

The meta-text is the marketing. Wintour will work the gala carpet as the actual editor while Streep's fictional Wintour plays in theaters across Manhattan. Hathaway has done the press circuit including the Vogue cover and the gala-adjacent events. The film's industry reception inside the Condé Nast building has been the campaign's softest surface; Wintour has been on every promotional appearance [4].

The box office is the cleanest signal. $77 million domestic at the May 1 weekend window beats the consensus tracking by $20 million and gives Disney the highest-grossing comedy opening since 2019 [5].

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles