After countless years of endless speculation, conflicting interviews from its stars, and a delightful on-stage reunion at last year’s SAG Awards, those of us who still worship at the feet of the cult classic that is The Devil Wears Prada finally got the news they were waiting for over summer: at last, almost two decades on, a sequel was in production and – wait for it – Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci would all return for it.
If the announcement gave you whiplash, you weren’t the only one. Back in October 2022, during a red carpet interview, Anne Hathaway told Entertainment Tonight categorically that “there’s not going to be a sequel. It’s not gonna happen. We can’t do it.” Then, in April 2024, when asked about the possibility of a sequel by V Magazine, she reiterated that it was “probably not” going to happen, though she was notably less definitive in shutting down the rumours. “We all love each other and if somebody could come up with a way to do it, I think we’d all be crazy not to,” she said. “But there’s a huge difference in the world now with technology, and one of the things about that particular story is it was about producing a physical object. Now with so much being digital, it would just be very different. Maybe me, Stanley, Emily, Meryl, Patricia Field… we should just all do something else together. That’d be fun.”
It turned out that that particular gang – or at least most of them – would in fact be reuniting, joined by the original film’s screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, who penned the next chapter, as well as its director David Frankel, and producer Wendy Finerman. The storyline will reportedly follow “Miranda Priestly as she navigates her career amid the decline of traditional magazine publishing and faces off against Blunt’s character, Emily Charlton, now a high-powered executive for a luxury group with advertising dollars that Priestly desperately needs”.
Per Puck’s Lauren Sherman: “Emily Charlton will be a high-powered executive at Christian Dior, and will wear Dior fashion throughout the movie. (Let’s hope it’s new stuff from Jonathan Anderson, who is an accomplished costume designer in his own right.) As for the plot, a significant spoiler ahead: still smarting from a grudge against the dowager empress editor Miranda Priestly, Emily conspires with her billionaire boyfriend (inspired in part by Jeff Bezos, I’m told) to buy Runway – which, like every other print magazine, is struggling.” Reps for LVMH and Disney did not comment.
And that’s not all: as presaged in the original The Devil Wears Prada, in which Miranda was gearing up for another divorce, there is a new “Mr Priestly” on the scene, none other than Kenneth Branagh, who is coming on board as her husband. In even more good news, Adrian Grenier’s now-universally-regarded-as-toxic boyfriend to Andy, Nate, is confirmed to not be returning.
More updates followed on 8 July: per Deadline, Simone Ashley is also joining the cast in an undisclosed part, while Variety has confirmed that she’ll be accompanied by Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, BJ Novak, Pauline Chalamet, Rachel Bloom, Patrick Brammall, comedian Caleb Hearon and Broadway stars Helen J Shen and Conrad Ricamora. And as for a few more returning favourites? Tracie Thoms, aka Andy’s gallerist friend Lily, and Tibor Feldman, who played Elias-Clark chairman Irv Ravitz (“tiny man, huge ego”), will both be back.
On 12 November a trailer dropped, focusing largely on Miranda’s (scarlet, Valentino) stilettos striding the halls at Runway. It’s just the slightest of glimpses of what’s to come when the film finally hits screens on 1 May 2026. In time for spring and just days ahead of the Met Gala? Groundbreaking.
Original article appeared on British Vogue
