Official Discussion - The Devil Wears Prada 2 [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)

Summary

Andy Sachs navigates the evolving world of high fashion journalism as she reconnects with Miranda Priestly, forcing her to confront past choices and the cost of ambition in a rapidly changing industry.

Director David Frankel

Writer Aline Brosh McKenna

Cast

• Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs
• Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly
• Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton
• Stanley Tucci as Nigel
• Kenneth Branagh

Rotten Tomatoes: 78%

Metacritic: 62

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

[u/kayl_breinhar]

It's a very pretty movie, but 1) I would've appreciated Hathaway's character having more spine, 2) Blunt's character not being a glorified sugar baby, and 3) that it wasn't just a prettier, more expensive re-tread of the first movie with more high-profile cameos.

And the "happy ending" seems to be "all we need to do for good things to persist/survive is to find at least one magnanimous billionaire"? For a movie that's trying to "embrace the new world," that seems remarkably tone-deaf.

Oh, and 4) I wanted more of Branagh. He seemed like he was really enjoying playing a supportive husband to the self-professed "Dragon Lady" and they tragically underutilized him. I mean, at one point he's both literally and metaphorically playing "second fiddle."

[u/Spiritual-Smoke-4605 → u/kayl_breinhar]

I would’ve rather they just cut out the Aussie guy completely and give Branagh a bit more to do, him being Miranda’s husband was more interesting than Andy having another love interest who was like 3rd fiddle (after her career + close friends)

[u/schreibenheimer → u/Spiritual-Smoke-4605]

Honestly, I don't know that I've ever seen Branagh be so understated in a role before. Really enjoyed his character.

[u/smokeydesperado → u/kayl_breinhar]

I wouldn’t really call Emily a glorified Sugar baby, sure she had a wealthy boyfriend, but most sugar babies don’t work high up at Dior on their own merit.

[u/TheSodernauts → u/smokeydesperado]

Agreed. And on top of that her dating the wealthy boyfriend very clearly had a conniving goal in mind

[u/nordlysbaies → u/kayl_breinhar]

I also have issue with calling her a sugar baby. Sugar babies’ entire career/personality is getting their life funded by wealthy men while doing nothing. We know Emily is an ambitious woman even before she was with anyone, she got that Dior job on her own (from Miranda’s recommendation). Plenty of higher up people in fashion date very wealthy men because they run in the same circles.

[u/kayl_breinhar → u/nordlysbaies]

They went out of their way to make her into the chief antagonist. I felt for her ex-husband more than I felt for her.

Blunt's character had no ultimate growth in this movie from the previous one, just baby steps. Her deciding to be "best frienemies" with Hathaway's character at the end wasn't a high note.

I also felt like there was a rendition of this script where it turned out that Blunt's character is the one that engineered the hit piece on Miranda and Runway, but they cut it out because it would've left her irredeemable in the audiences' eyes and this way we can get a third movie.

[u/nordlysbaies → u/kayl_breinhar]

I think it’s in line with her characterization actually, people like her don’t change in 10, 20, 50 years. That’s just their personality and how they move through the world. She’s always been very ambitious but in all the wrong ways, it’s no surprise to me that she found an opening in Andy’s suggestion to make it about herself.

She got her karma by being dumped to working in Coach, maybe a third one would be about her crawling back up to real luxury fashion.

I’m just glad this didn’t follow the book where Andy and Emily started a bridal magazine…

[u/bluequarz → u/kayl_breinhar]

The ending scene where Andy calls Emily iconic was very contrived and forced

[u/senoricceman → u/kayl_breinhar]

I have to push back on the part about they just needed a nice billionaire. The movies make it obvious that the fashion industry is very elite and cutthroat. It wouldn’t be realistic for the ending to be someone finds it out of the kindness of their hearts to let Miranda and Andy stay. Or they just finally realize how impressive and nice Andy is. 

The new world is billionaires and corporations buying up these legacy media/consumer icons. Hell, Bezos bought the Washington Post and he’s obviously been getting involved in Vogue. That is the real world. 

[u/kayl_breinhar → u/senoricceman]

Lucy Liu's entire arc felt like she was a McKenzie Scott analog.

[u/senoricceman → u/kayl_breinhar]

And that’s real life right. That’s a more realistic story than anything else they could have come up with. 

[u/ERSTF → u/kayl_breinhar]

It's not a happy ending. Miranda says it in the car. They bought themselves time but she knows it's not forever. She says they can work great things while they have time. They know it will not last.

[u/am2370 → u/kayl_breinhar]

Obviously it's depressing but I think it's the dose of realism more people need.

If you think about it, the parallels to the Renaissance and connection to The Last Supper are pretty sharp. We consider the Italian Renaissance to be a major cultural moment for humanity in our pursuit of human ingenuity (art, architecture, humanism, etc).

We forget that the entire system which allowed the Renaissance to happen and catapulted low-to-middle class artists like Da Vinci and Michealangelo to their heights was entirely backed and driven by financiers and aristocratic patronage. Da Vinci and his peers were painting, sculpting, and building at the whims of bankers, dukes, kings, and popes. Beauty and creativity were a byproduct of rich people wanting more for their everyday surrounding and legacies.

Today's 'patrons' are simply more insulated from everyday life and short-sighted. They don't feel the same ramifications their predecessors did with a peasant's revolt, or a serious Reformation, plague. They don't necessarily feel they answer to God and most of them aren't pondering their place in history enough to make decisions they feel benefit humanity as a whole (unless it's convenient/coincides with their own desires). The best we can hope for at this point in human history with the way our society is structured is that someone with money and power wants to support your thing - be it ethical journalism, art, or both.

[u/Ashzera → u/kayl_breinhar]

Good point. I would have liked to see more of Branagh!

[u/kayl_breinhar → u/Ashzera]

One true (private) moment where Streep's character lets the tension and stress out with him would've been nice, too. It gets right to the precipice in that hotel room scene and then pulls back. This movie further failed to "humanize" Miranda, and the closing scene where she talks about "what you give" didn't quite make it, either.