With sequels, there’s always a gamble on whether they’re going to live up to the original, and there are cases for both scenarios where they don’t and where they do. Now, when it comes to legacy sequels, there’s a lot more to gamble on, as the usual case is that the film was better left alone. After 20 years, where does The Devil Wears Prada 2 fit into this scenario? Was it better left alone all those years ago, or does it make a pretty good case for why it exists in 2026? Arguably, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is one of the better legacy sequels and is almost as good as its predecessor, if not for some slight issues with its story and how it’s handled.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 follows Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) returning to Runway to assist Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in navigating the new media landscape and helping the magazine stay alive in an era where print magazines don’t thrive as much as they used to.
When we first met Andy in The Devil Wears Prada, she was a woman using Runway as a means to pursue her passion for journalism and wasn’t too fascinated with the world of fashion. When she met Miranda Priestly, she quickly came to learn about her mannerisms and grew into herself with the help of Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci). Now, 20 years later, it feels like not much has changed when it comes to reuniting with these characters again.
The only main difference is the state of journalism, and writer Aline Brosh McKenna makes it known from as soon as the film starts that the climate isn’t what it once used to be as Andy and her team get laid off while she’s in the middle of winning an award for journalism. The timing couldn’t be any better.
It was a giant task for director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna to return, as the story had to be just right. With it tackling the declining landscape of journalism, it felt like the best time to return as social media and influencers try to take over what could be a lost art form. With Andy now laid off from her job and Miranda currently dealing with backlash on a sweatshop scandal story, the two need each other more than ever.
Andy’s been brought in as the features editor to aid in saving the magazine’s reputation, and this includes ensuring they can keep advertisements happy, particularly Dior, which, coincidentally, Miranda’s former assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) now has a senior role at.
Over the course of 20 years, it feels like Emily has transformed into her own version of Miranda with how she talks to people and even has her own ulterior motives underneath it all. Blunt’s return is the most different, as we watch Emily through a whole new lens, which showcases how money and power can change someone so much. Alongside the returning cast, we get new members such as Simone Ashley, who plays Amari Mari, Miranda’s new current assistant. Through just watching her scenes, we can see how much Runway has changed, not just from its shift to digital but also how Miranda doesn’t bully her assistants like she used to due to HR complaints.
The world has changed a lot from 2006 to 2026, and The Devil Wears Prada 2 highlights that through its characters. While the first film allowed us to look at the glitz and glamour of the fashion world through Andy’s eyes, this sequel lays back a bit as it takes a more serious tone with its story. Andy and Miranda are scurrying around to save the magazine but are also pandering to the rich, who have all the control on whether they have jobs or not and if Runway will even be the same.
It highlights how rich fools who have a lack of knowledge in anything hold all the power in the stakes of companies just because of how much money is in their bank account, and the third act really plays around the back and forth of the idea of losing Runway to a complete imbecile who wants to ruin it all and trying to get the company back into the hands of someone that’s willing to not take away jobs and keep the printed format.
It’s unfortunate because whenever the movie steers away from their glaring problems, its issues start to become more obvious, and it all boils down to Andy as a character. In the last film, she had a boyfriend that was essentially the villain of the movie. Now, we get talks of how she’s single, has no kids, but does indeed have frozen eggs, which all leads to suddenly following this romantic subplot that adds nothing of value to her character or the movie. Her love interest, Peter (Patrick Brammall), is one of the most forgettable characters in the film, and their scenes together only take away from the more important issues.
The second issue with Andy’s character is that while there’s development with her since the first film in some areas, it still feels like she revolves her life around Miranda. Any moment where it felt like she was standing up for herself and doing things on her own accord, she’d go several steps backwards and continue to make sure that Miranda was happy instead of focusing on herself. That relationship does bring a change among Miranda, but by the end of the film, it feels like Andy hasn’t changed much and fails to break out of her cocoon and be her own person.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a worthy sequel to its predecessor, and fans of the first are bound to enjoy this follow-up film. It steps away from the glamorous world of fashion just to tell a stronger, more serious story that’s a real threat in today’s world of journalism. Instead of reheating the same story that they did 20 years ago, they take the characters and the landscape of the world and frame it for a modern audience in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s making jokes at the expense of people who are currently living that lifestyle of fearing the loss of their jobs in an era where print media is becoming extinct.
