'The Devil Wears Prada' Sequel Set Amid the Decline of Magazines

A sequel to hit 2006 comedy “The Devil Wears Prada” is under way at Disney, with key cast and crew widely expected to return, including director David Frankel.

Aline Brosh McKenna, who adapted the original film from the novel by Lauren Weisberger is in talks to write the follow-up, whose storyline reportedly follows Miranda Priestly, the withering fashion mag editor played by Meryl Streep, as she navigates the decline of traditional print publication in the digital space.

Her new key adversary is sometime assistant Emily Charlton (played by Emily Blunt in the original), who is now a high-powered executive for a luxury consortium, and who makes the decisions over where to place lucrative advertising contracts.

Weisberger worked as an assistant to US Vogue editor Anna Wintour before turning to fiction; Priestly is assumed to have been inspired by her former boss – still in position at Vogue. The film won Streep a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination, as well as making $327 million worldwide from a $41 million budget.

The nominal leading character in the first film, Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway) is so far absent from the new film’s logline. All three leads have frequently reunited, most recently at the SAG awards in February. Earlier this year, Blunt and Hathaway revisited their experiences making the film as part of Variety’s Actors on Actors series.

“We just had a joy bomb of a time on that movie,” Blunt told Hathaway during the conversation. “I don’t know if any of us knew it was going to become what it did. It’s quoted to me every week. It will be the movie that changed my life.”

Other cast members, most notably Stanley Tucci, who played Priestly’s long-suffering deputy, have also helped keep conversation about the film alive. Significant reassessment of the film’s romantic subplot has also taken place, with many viewers believing that Andy’s boyfriend, Nate, was the “real villain” of the story for his efforts to get his girlfriend to take her career less seriously.

Blunt will next be seen in “Jungle Cruise 2,” following her leading role in “The Fall Guy” and Oscar nomination for “Oppenheimer.” Age-gap romance “The Idea of You” reinvigorated Hathaway’s career last month; Streep is winning further acclaim for her role in comedy series “Only Murders in the Building.”

A musical version of the original film, with an original score by Elton John, opens in the West End in October, with Vanessa Williams as Priestly.

By Catherine Shoard

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