Ambition is still seen as unattractive in women. It's alive and kicking.
Twenty years after Miranda Priestly first commanded a room, she returns not merely to entertain but to bear witness — to an industry fraying at its edges, to ambitions still punished in women that are celebrated in men, and to the enduring question of what we owe the institutions that shape how we understand the world. The Devil Wears Prada sequel, arriving in 2026 with its original cast intact, was made only on the condition that it meant something, a rare demand in an era of nostalgia-driven cinema. In placing high fashion alongside the slow collapse of journalism, the film asks its audience to reckon with a quiet truth: that what we choose to value, we must also choose to sustain.
- Meryl Streep refused to return unless the sequel confronted the real crises reshaping journalism — layoffs, the death of print, and the destabilizing force of social media and AI.
- The film carries the weight of an industry in genuine distress, with Stanley Tucci's character articulating the loss of control journalists now face in a landscape they no longer govern.
- Anne Hathaway pushes the tension outward, arguing that journalism's survival is not Hollywood's problem to solve but the audience's — a direct, uncomfortable challenge wrapped in sequined escapism.
- Emily Blunt anchors the film's lighter register, offering it as a refuge for fractured times, even as the story beneath refuses to let ambition, sacrifice, or consequence go unexamined.
- All three leads hold the line on a theme the original struck twenty years ago: that women who love their work and center it are still rare on screen, still misread in life, and still necessary as protagonists.
Twenty years on, the question surrounding a Devil Wears Prada sequel was never really about box office — it was about justification. Meryl Streep, returning as the imperious Miranda Priestly, made her terms clear: the film would only exist if it spoke to the present moment. That moment, it turns out, is one of genuine crisis for journalism itself.
The sequel does not look away from the industry's wounds. Stanley Tucci, back as creative director Nigel Kipling, names them directly — the hollowed newsrooms, the tide of digital disruption, the loss of editorial control to social media and AI. Anne Hathaway's Andy Sachs, now a features editor at Runway, frames the stakes as collective: audiences who believe journalism matters must act like it. "The fate of journalism really rests on them," she says.
Yet the film resists becoming a polemic. Streep is quick to note they haven't made Spotlight — there is fashion, there is fun, there is the particular pleasure of returning to a world audiences once loved. Emily Blunt, whose Emily Charlton has risen to luxury retail executive, calls it "a nice bit of escapism" for a fractured world, and means it warmly.
Beneath the glamour, the film's deeper argument concerns ambition — specifically, female ambition, which Streep notes remains culturally suspect despite decades of supposed progress. Hathaway observes that stories about women who love their work and prioritize it are still rare in Hollywood, which is precisely why this one resonated then and resonates now.
The characters pay costs. Personal lives bend under professional weight. But the film refuses a single verdict on what constitutes a meaningful life, leaving that, as Hathaway puts it, deeply personal. Streep offers something close to a benediction: balance matters, and no one reaches the end wishing they had spent more time at the office. The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives, then, as both celebration and quiet argument — for beauty, for story, and for the institutions still trying to tell the truth.
Twenty years after the original Devil Wears Prada arrived in cinemas, the question wasn't whether a sequel could match that film's cultural grip—it was whether one should exist at all. Meryl Streep, reprising her role as Miranda Priestly, the imperious editor of Runway Magazine, had a simple answer: only if the story mattered to right now.
"There was one way that we would sign on to do a sequel," Streep told BBC News. "If it spoke to the moment." That moment, it turns out, is one of genuine crisis for journalism itself. The new film doesn't shy away from the industry's real wounds—the newsrooms hollowed by layoffs, the slow death of print, the overwhelming tide of digital media. Stanley Tucci, returning as Nigel Kipling, Miranda's creative director, frames it plainly: the film grapples with "the loss of control that journalists have because of social media and AI." This is not a movie that pretends nothing has changed.
Yet the filmmakers—writer Aline Brosh McKenna and director David Frankel, both returning from the original—have resisted the urge to simply remake what worked before. Anne Hathaway, who plays Andy Sachs, now returning to Runway as its features editor, describes the film's central tension: "One of the things I think the film does really well is show you have to participate in the world you want to live." She goes further, suggesting the stakes are collective. "I hope people realise the fate of journalism really rests on them and if you believe in it, you believe it's important." Streep, for her part, hopes audiences "take hope from this," though she's careful to note the film hasn't abandoned its DNA. "It sounds like we've made Spotlight or something but no, we've made The Devil Wears Prada—there's a lot of fun and fashion."
Emily Blunt, who plays Emily Charlton (now a high-ranking executive in luxury retail rather than an assistant), describes the film as "a nice bit of escapism" at a moment when the world feels fractured. She wants viewers to arrive with friends, to laugh, to feel the pleasure of returning to a world they loved. Yet beneath that escapism runs a current of genuine reckoning. The three female leads—Streep, Hathaway, and Blunt—remain at the center, their ambitions undiminished. This matters. Streep is direct about why: "For young women who pursue a career, it's always been the case that ambition is seen as an unattractive quality in women. We would hope that feeling would be obsolete but it isn't, it's alive and kicking."
Hathaway echoes this, noting that stories about women who love their work, who prioritize it, remain rare in Hollywood. "I think that's why this one resonated with people 20 years ago and I think why people are responding to it this time—because there are a lot of us out there who feel that way." But the film doesn't pretend ambition comes without cost. The characters sacrifice in their personal lives. Hathaway, an Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe winner, speaks carefully about what constitutes a full life. "How you define having a full life, a satisfying life and a meaningful one is very personal," she says. "For some people, that means you have a career and for some, it means your career is life-based. There's no one better than the other."
Streep adds a note that feels almost like a benediction: "No man on his deathbed says 'damn, I wish I'd been at the office more.' We all want to keep our lives in balance." The film arrives at a moment when journalism itself hangs in the balance, when the industry's survival depends partly on whether audiences still believe it matters enough to support. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is, in that sense, both a love letter to a world of beauty and style and a quiet argument for the necessity of the institutions that tell us stories.
Citas Notables
There was one way that we would sign on to do a sequel. If it spoke to the moment.— Meryl Streep
The film is dealing with the issues of today—the loss of control that journalists have because of social media and AI.— Stanley Tucci
I hope people realise the fate of journalism really rests on them and if you believe in it, you believe it's important.— Anne Hathaway
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did Streep insist the sequel had to "speak to the moment"? What moment was she protecting against?
She was protecting against the thing sequels do worst—the hollow repetition, the cash grab dressed up as nostalgia. But she also understood that the world of journalism had fundamentally changed. The original film was about ambition and power in a specific ecosystem. That ecosystem is collapsing. A sequel that ignored that would feel like a lie.
So the film is actually about journalism's crisis, not fashion?
It's both. The fashion is real—the clothes, the glamour, the world of Runway Magazine. But that world exists inside a larger world that's breaking. The film doesn't pretend the magazine industry is separate from what's happening to journalism broadly. Social media, AI, the loss of control—these aren't background noise. They're the story.
The cast keeps talking about female ambition. Why is that still controversial enough to need defending?
Because it still is. Streep says it plainly: ambition in women is still read as unattractive, unfeminine, selfish. The original film was radical partly because it centered women who wanted power and didn't apologize. Twenty years later, that's still radical. The fact that they're making that argument again suggests the world hasn't moved as far as we might have thought.
But doesn't the film also show these women sacrificing their personal lives? Isn't that a darker message?
Yes, and that's honest. The film doesn't pretend you can have everything equally. It just says: that's your choice to make, and it's valid. The real message is that men should be allowed to make the same choice without judgment. That's what Streep means about balance—it's not about having it all. It's about deciding what matters to you.
Is this escapism or activism?
It's both, which is maybe the only way escapism works anymore. You go to feel the pleasure of beautiful clothes and sharp dialogue and a world that feels alive. But you leave thinking about whether journalism matters, whether ambition is worth the cost, whether you're living the life you actually want. That's not nothing.