The Devil Wears Prada 2: A Nostalgic Eulogy for Journalism and Creativity in Hollywood

Twenty years ago, when The Devil Wears Prada premiered, the film industry operated in a vastly different world. Summer blockbusters weren’t routinely priced at a quarter-billion dollars or more. Fashion magazines shaped entire fall clothing lines. And 20th Century Fox was still a standalone studio. Today, the familiar “Fox Fanfare” now plays over a 20th Century Studios logo, signaling a drastically altered landscape where even Meryl Streep’s iconic Miranda Priestly clings desperately to relevance.

Forget sympathy for the Devil—The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a full-throated eulogy for anyone still trying to create meaningful work in today’s media wasteland. Critics have praised the film’s heartfelt tribute to print journalism, a theme that resonates deeply in an era of digital curation over storytelling.

The Return of a Hollywood Icon

Marketing for the sequel wisely highlighted the return of Streep’s razor-sharp silver bob, alongside Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt in their original roles. Even Stanley Tucci makes a welcome appearance. Yet the film’s true surprise is its sweetly romanticized portrayal of journalism—a dying art form in an age of algorithm-driven content.

The Crisis at Runway Magazine

The film’s central conflict revolves around Runway, a fictional fashion magazine thinly veiled as a parody of Vogue and Anna Wintour’s legendary office. The magazine is in crisis, and Miranda Priestly’s indecisive CEO forces her to hire Andy Sachs (Hathaway) as senior features editor—not out of confidence, but because Andy delivered a viral, expletive-laden defense of written journalism on TikTok after being laid off moments before receiving an award for her reporting.

This premise isn’t just a contrivance to reunite Miranda and Andy. It’s a reflection of the uncertainty and gallows humor gripping newsrooms from New York to D.C., Los Angeles to London—and even smaller markets where local newspapers and magazines are nearly extinct. As Tucci’s long-suffering fashion director scoffs, “Runway isn’t a magazine anymore.”

There’s still a book, barely read, but the publication has become a “content portfolio” designed for passive scrolling. “I used to do four-week shoots in Africa every year,” he laments.