Devil Wears Prada sequel struts to $297m debut at global box office

LOS ANGELES – Older actresses are not bankable? The blockbuster era for traditional comedies is over, with streaming having siphoned away the audience?

American actress Meryl Streep, 76, stepped back into Miranda Priestly’s sky-high heels over the weekend and demolished those Hollywood orthodoxies.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, an old-fashioned workplace comedy, collected roughly US$77 million (S$98 million) in cinemas in North America from May 1 to 3, according to Comscore, a data service. It was the biggest domestic opening for a traditional comedy since 2015, when Pitch Perfect 2 sold US$69 million in tickets over its first three days, or roughly US$97 million after adjusting for inflation.

The film, rated PG13 in Singapore, took in an additional US$157 million overseas, for a global total of about US$234 million (S$297 million).

Women overwhelmingly powered the results – ticket buyers were 76 per cent female, according to PostTrak, a film industry research service. Roughly 60 per cent of the audience was aged 35 and older. Hollywood typically considers a ticket buyer over age 34 to be “old”.

For the weekend in North America, The Devil Wears Prada 2 was No. 1.

Michael, Lionsgate’s contentious Michael Jackson biopic, was a strong second in its second weekend in cinemas. It sold about US$54 million in tickets, for a new domestic total of US$184 million and US$424 million worldwide.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 cost 20th Century Studios, which is owned by Disney, an estimated US$100 million to make. Global marketing costs added at least another US$80 million. Reviews were strong. The sequel reunited Streep with her castmates from the first film: Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt, both 43, and Stanley Tucci, 65.

The first Devil Wears Prada was a smash hit in 2006, selling US$327 million in tickets worldwide, or about US$545 million in today’s money. It was one of six comedies to rank among the Top 20 box-office performers of that year, alongside Borat, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, Click, The Break Up and Failure To Launch.

No traditional comedies cracked the Top 20 in 2025. Or the year before that – or the year before that.

Some of the biggest hits in recent years had comedic elements, of course, including A Minecraft Movie (2025) and Lilo & Stitch (2025). Those films, however, also relied on extensive visual effects, like partial animation.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 was also a rare example of a movie anchored by an older actress.

Women aged 60 and older accounted for just 2 per cent of major female characters in wide-release movies in 2025, according to research by Professor Martha Lauzen, who leads the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. They included Aunt Gladys in Weapons (2025), played by American actress Amy Madigan, 75, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in March for her performance.

Actresses of a certain age – even ones as celebrated as Streep, who has won three Academy Awards – are often sidelined by entrenched ageism and sexism at studios, which are overwhelmingly run by men, researchers say. Hits such as Book Club (2018), which starred Diane Keaton and Jane Fonda, tend to be dismissed as anomalies.

But The Devil Wears Prada 2 cannot be ignored.

“This is a sensational opening,” said Mr David Gross, a film consultant who publishes an influential Hollywood newsletter. NYTIMES