"The Devil Wears Prada" surpasses $1 billion as a franchise

In its seventh week in theaters, The Devil Wears Prada 2 has now racked up $676 million worldwide. This total, combined with the original form 2006, brings the franchise's global box office above $1 billion. Not too shabby for two movies released twenty years apart and whose audience is primarily made up of women. 

Prada 2 will continue to make money. I'm thrilled it's doing well in theaters. It can only bolster any possibility of Meryl's projects getting greenlit and distributed. She's a bankable star well into her 70s. I'm not sure we've seen a woman in the history of cinema do this well for this long, particularly when we consider both Meryl's critics' adulation and box-office clout, the latter of which she didn't really have a ton of until Prada 1. Her movies were often received well by critics (and her performances especially), but they rarely made a lot of money. 

Now let's hope we can continue to get projects that combine both great strories/characters with an audience interested in seeing them!

Rachel Bloom and Patrick Brammal join "The Devil Wears Prada 2"

More casting updates for The Devil Wears Prada 2, as both Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and Patrick Brammal (Colin from Accounts) have reportedly joined the cast. Brammal has been rumored as the love interest (possibly husband?) of Anne Hathway's character. Filming is currently underway.

Hathway has also offered us the first in-character look from the set, as she posted a pic of herself as Andy Sachs: 

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A post shared by Anne Hathaway (@annehathaway)

Holy shit she looks good. Meryl isn't on social media so we won't expect to see something like this for her. And although I'm dying to see updated Miranda photos, I have a feeling the studio might delay those so as to really build up interest for what is likely the most anticipated look of the sequel.

Rachel Bloom and Patrick Brammal

"The Devil Wears Prada" sequel in the works at Disney

Multiple sources are reporting today that Disney is in early development of a Devil Wears Prada sequel, with Streep reprising her role as Miranda Priestly. Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna has once again been tapped to write the script, with original David Frankel rumored to be in talks to helm this as well. The news of the film's production came with the following logline for the film's plot:

Miranda’s (Streep) career goes into decline, which forces her to go face to face with Emily (Blunt), now a major exec at a luxury group, whose advertising dollars Miranda desperately needs.

So, we know that Emily Blunt will be reprising her role. No word on Anne Hathway, but it doesn't seem likely that there'd be a role for her. The story of the sequel also does not sound like Laura Weisberger's 2013 follow-up novel, Revenge Wears Prada. Seems like this might be a completely original script. 

When I first saw the news for this, I had mixed feelings. I, like many other Streepers, have been impatiently waiting for news of a new lead project for Meryl (or just anything juicy). I'm just not a huge fan of the idea of sequels for Meryl. This likely stems from my desire to see her inhabit new roles, which is of course what makes me a huge fan of hers in the first place--she's always doing new and fresh things. 

But thinking a bit on it, I wonder if this might end up being a very shrewd career move for Meryl. While it's certainly possible that the film will turn out to be pure crap, it's hard to imagine it not making a decent amount of money. And if it makes a shit ton of money like the original did, the result (like it was after the original's release), could be an inundation with film offers for Meryl in the aftermath. The options for roles are likely far fewer these days, but if this turns out to be a money-maker, it's a recipe for green-lighting things that otherwise may never have seen the light of day. Maybe Meryl would even contend for some awards. 

Considering that the sequel will take place about twenty years after the original, and Miranda is sort of in dire straits, the character may be far enough removed from the more mysterious 2006 version we all know and love. That's a bit closer to a new character than say a sequel that happens one to three years later. Twenty years is a long time, and people can go through plenty of things that markedly alter their beliefs, motivations, and behaviors. It will be exciting to see how Meryl makes this fresh. That's one key spot of opportunity for her to shine. 

With the script apparently not even complete, it seems unlikely that filming will get underway anytime sooner than 2025. Which then means we're likely looking at a 2026 release (twenty years exactly after the original). I like tidy timelines like that. It would make it more of an event, and possibly be helpful with the marketing. I'd be surprised if this were not released in the summer. And I really hope they come up with a title more interesting than The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Regardless of what I or anyone else thinks about this news, it's wonderful to have something to look forward to for Meryl's career again! Now what if we also get news that she's going to film something else new this fall?!

"The Devil Wears Prada" turns 15

 Fifteen years ago this month, The Devil Wears Prada was released in U.S. theaters. While the film was a great critical and commercial success, more importantly, it represented a shift in Meryl's career that many believe skyrocketed her into a level of reverence that no other actress of her generation had ever been able to achieve. She earned her fourteenth Oscar nomination, and at the age of 57 had found herself an enormous box office draw. In only the five years after the film was release, Meryl enjoyed huge hits like Mamma Mia!, Julie & Julia, and It's Complicated, as well as three additional Oscar nominations (winning of course for 2011's The Iron Lady). 

It's difficult to overstate how important the success of this film was to the next decade of Meryl's career. Her name alone got films green-lit. And not just because she was a good actor. But because studios expected that she would make them money. That success continues to this day, much in part to how well The Devil Wears Prada was received. To commemorate the film's anniversary, the cast, director David Frankel, and costume designer Patricia Field sat down over a Zoom call with Entertainment Weekly to discuss the film's legacy. Some fun stuff packed into this 30-minute video. Enjoy. 

Let's Talk About..."It's Complicated"

Since the inaugural post for this section in March I've inadvertently left it dormant.  I watched It's Complicated very recently so thought it would be an appropriate next entry.  One of my favorite things about re-watching Streep films is that I catch these little things I missed in previous viewings.  Of course one does that with every movie, but particularly with Meryl there are so many layers and subtleties to her performances that it's next to impossible to notice everything on the first go around.

I think we tend to think of this picture as a rom-com and total lifestyle porn.  It probably is, but Streep's character of Jane Adler goes through some pretty complicated interesting emotional situations.  The modern family dynamic following divorce is explored from the point of view of an independent mother of three adult children.  Let's not forget that the film came out when Meryl was 60 years old, which makes the fact that it made $112 domestically pretty astonishing.  At the end of 2009 Streep had sort of cemented her 'later-bloomer' box office draw standing.  Following 2006's The Devil Wears Prada, 2008's Mamma Mia! and summer 2009's Julie & Julia, we'd enjoyed an unprecedented string of commercial successes for Streep which she has yet to match.  The four films mentioned averaged $119 million in the U.S.

Discuss.

"The Devil Wears Prada" ten years later

For about a week now, multiple sources have been doing retrospecitves on The Devil Wears Prada.  Tomorrow (June 30) marks the 10-year anniversary of the film's release.  Initially I didn't think to blog about it, but the more I thought, the more I realized how pivotal the film's success was to Meryl's future filmography.

In partiuclar, there's a great article from Variety where they interview Streep and co-stars Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt.  Points of interest for me were how Meryl insisted on including a scene which described the fashion industry (my favorite Meryl scene of the film) and one where she has her makeup removed and is without her "armour" (my second favorite).

The June 2006 release of this film started the string of successful projects with summer debuts, which made Meryl a bonafide box-office draw for the first time in her career, while approaching the age of 60.  Following Prada we saw Mamma Mia!, Julie & Julia and It's Complicated, all big money-makers.  I'd arguably throw Hope Springs in there as well.   And even last year's Ricki and the Flash, while not nearly as commercially successful as the others in this list, still well surpassed its budget.  By all accounts Florence Foster Jenkins will continue the streak in August.

It's impossible to know the extent to which The Devil Wears Prada solidified projects for Meryl.  I remember director Norah Ephron suggesting that Julie & Julia wouldn't have come together without Streep's recent successes.  I'm just happy it opened more doors for Meryl, as her continuing to accept plum roles is what's most important for me.  Let's hope it keeps going! I'll leave you all with my fav Meryl moment from Prada.  

Academy Awards analysis (2006)

By the time The Devil Wears Prada was released, we had experienced the longest span between Lead Actress nominations of Meryl's career.  The five-year break between Postcards from the Edge (1990) and The Bridges of Madison County (1995) was the greatest gap in nominations, but I was surprised when I considered that in 2006 it had been seven years since being nominated for a lead role.  Yes, there are many who consider Miranda Priestly a supporting character in the film, but the vast majority of Streep's multiple nominations from that year were indeed in the category of lead.

This film also marked an important turning point in the history of Meryl's career.  Possibly for the first time in her 30 years on screen, she became bankable.  The wonderful performance in cinemas brought Meryl into great demand for a handful of roles that may never had seen the light of day had Prada not been such a hit.  Within three years of this film's release, the success of Mama Mia!, Julie & Julia and It's Complicated solidified Streep's status as a bonafide, if not unexpected, box office draw at the age of 60.

Despite Prada's success, another actor's work the same year completely outshone the others.  Helen Mirren's  performance as Queen Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' The Queen ultimately became one of the most dominant on the awards circuit in history.  Doing a quick check, a non-exhaustive list of Mirren's wins that year include the following:

Academy Award

Screen Actros Guild Award

BAFTA 

Golden Globe (drama)

Critics' Choice Award

National Society of Film Critics

New York Film Critics

Los Angeles Film Critics

It's possibly the biggest slam dunk of the 2000's for lead role.   Many consider Meryl to have been a distant second in the Oscar race that year, with the rest of the crew considered also-rans.  The full list of nominees that year is as follows:

Penélope Cruz (Volver)
Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal)
Helen Mirren (The Queen)
Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada)
Kate Winslet (Little Children)

I've seen all but Cruz's performance, with my personal favorite (aside from Meryl) being Dench in Notes on a Scandal. In any half a dozen other years before or after 2006, Dench would've been very difficult to top in my opinion.  Great year for women's roles. Incidentally, this was Meryl's 10th consecutive loss at the Academy Awards.

Film review: "The Devil Wears Prada" (2006)

Ok, I have to qualify the fact that Sophie's Choice is my favorite Meryl movie. The overall performance is amazing enough, for me, to make it my favorite. That said, Meryl's turn as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada is probably the role I've technically watched the most. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, recounting her days as a peon assistant to the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour. The magazine's name is changed to "Runway" for the film, and we follow poor, hapless (and icky-clothed) Andrea Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, as she attempts to keep her head above water in this skinny bitch-eat-skinny bitch world of high fashion. Btw, Miranda refers to Andy as the "smart, fat girl." She's a size 6.

I absolutely love this film for several reasons. First and foremost, it's extremely quotable. Rare is the day that my bf and/or roomie don't roll our eyes at each other and say, "by all means, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me." As always, Meryl's performance is impeccable. I have to say, it's a role unlike any other she's ever played. Now, of course she's known for choosing very diverse roles, blah blah blah, but in this film we're sans accent, and Meryl's character is a very modern, ball-busting executive. And, the clothes she got to wear?! Don't even get me started. In her Golden Globe acceptance speech she described wardrobe as special effects for this film. I would add that it was almost like a beautiful, uncredited character. I'm such a homo. Check out this clip that includes a fun insight into the business:



It's interesting in this movie how Meryl chooses to make herself seem so inaccessible and in control. My favorite thing is that she never raises her voice, almost speaking extra softly. We tend to think of high-powered execs as loud and in your face. Instead, Meryl's choice for Miranda forces people to shut the hell up when she's talking or you won't be able to hear her. I've had elementary school teachers who've employed this trick with success.

Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci play fantastic supporting roles in the film, particularly Blunt in my opinion. She delivers some great one-liners like "oh I'm sorry do you have some prior commitment? Some hideous skirt convention you have to go to?" Cracks my shit up. It's overall a comedy/dramedy I guess, but there really are some great acting moments. Meryl manages to get us afraid of her, only to turn right around and somehow make us feel sorry for her when she reveals her husband's divorce wishes. Not many people can negotiate those tricky nuances so convincingly. Oh who am I kidding, no one comes close.

Meryl received her 14th Academy Award nomination for the role (breaking her own record). Duh.