Key figures: Meryl Streep (Miranda Priestly), Anne Hathaway (Andy Sachs), Emily Blunt (Emily Charlton), Stanley Tucci (Nigel), David Frankel (director), Wendy Finerman (producer), Patricia Field (costume designer), Lauren Weisberger (source novelist)
Summary
The Devil Wears Prada premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 22, 2006, and received a wide theatrical release in the United States on June 30, playing on 2,847 screens. Directed by David Frankel and adapted by Aline Brosh McKenna from Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 debut novel, the film stars Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, the icily demanding editor-in-chief of the fictional Runway magazine, and Anne Hathaway as Andrea “Andy” Sachs, a recent Northwestern University graduate who takes a job as Miranda’s second assistant despite having no interest in fashion.
The production earned $124.7 million domestically and $326.7 million worldwide against a production budget of approximately $35–41 million, returning roughly nine times its cost. It opened in second place at the domestic box office on the weekend of June 30–July 2, grossing about $27 million—well above pre-release projections and behind only the debut of Superman Returns—and remained in the top ten for seven consecutive weekends. Twentieth Century Fox distributed the film, which became one of the studio’s most profitable releases of 2006 relative to its modest budget.
Production
Development and Casting
Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel, widely read as a roman à clef based on her experience as assistant to Vogue editor Anna Wintour, sold over six million copies before the film’s release and created significant mainstream awareness of the project. Producer Wendy Finerman acquired the rights and brought Aline Brosh McKenna aboard to write the screenplay; McKenna’s adaptation substantially deepened the Andy character’s arc and sharpened Miranda’s dialogue into memorably aphoristic lines not found in the novel.
Meryl Streep was the only actress formally considered for Miranda Priestly. Rather than playing Miranda as a screaming tyrant—the approach Streep said she initially expected—she chose to portray her in an almost whispery register, finding inspiration partly in Clint Eastwood’s laconic screen authority and partly in Pope John Paul II’s quiet command. Anne Hathaway, whose previous work included the Princess Diaries franchise (2001, 2004) and Brokeback Mountain (2005), was cast as Andy. Emily Blunt, then largely unknown to American audiences despite a BAFTA-nominated performance in My Summer of Love (2004), was cast as Emily, Andy’s sharp-tongued first-assistant colleague. Stanley Tucci, a veteran character actor, took the role of Nigel, the art director who serves as Andy’s unlikely mentor.
Costume Design
Patricia Field, the costume designer who had defined the wardrobe aesthetic of Sex and the City (1998–2004), was hired to design the film’s costumes—a pivotal creative decision. Field worked directly with major fashion houses including Chanel, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, and Calvin Klein to secure garments for Streep’s Miranda, sourcing pieces from current collections and period archives. The film’s most quoted scene—in which Miranda delivers a monologue explaining that Andy’s “cerulean” sweater traces its aesthetic lineage through multiple seasons of high-fashion collections—was designed as a literal manifesto connecting high fashion to mass consumption. Field later said the sequence was conceived explicitly to reframe fashion as a form of cultural history rather than mere vanity.
Andy’s transformation from utilitarian academic to fashion insider was structured by Field as a visual narrative arc across three costume phases, each signaling a stage of her ethical compromise. The before-and-after contrast became widely studied in film schools and fashion programs as an example of costume design as character development.
Box Office Performance
| Milestone | Date | Figures |
|---|---|---|
| LA Film Festival premiere | June 22, 2006 | — |
| Wide U.S. release | June 30, 2006 | 2,847 screens |
| Opening weekend gross | June 30 – July 2, 2006 | ~$27.0 million (2nd place) |
| Domestic total | — | $124.7 million |
| Worldwide total | — | $326.7 million |
| Production budget | — | ~$35–41 million |
The film’s commercial performance was notable for its demographic spread: it attracted the expected urban female audience but significantly outperformed projections among male viewers and in suburban markets, suggesting that the workplace satire and Streep’s performance generated crossover appeal beyond the fashion-interested audience. Its longevity on the domestic chart—remaining in the top ten through late August 2006—reflected sustained word-of-mouth rather than front-loaded opening-weekend business.
Awards and Recognition
Meryl Streep’s performance generated broad awards recognition. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in January 2007, defeating Anne Hathaway (nominated in the same category for the same film). Streep was additionally nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 79th Academy Awards (March 2007)—her fourteenth Oscar nomination, a record at that time—as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress.
Emily Blunt received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Emily, a performance that effectively launched her American career. Patricia Field received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design, recognizing the centrality of the film’s wardrobe to its critical success.
| Award | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Globe (64th) | Best Actress – Musical or Comedy | Meryl Streep | Won |
| Academy Award (79th) | Best Actress | Meryl Streep | Nominated |
| Academy Award (79th) | Best Costume Design | Patricia Field | Nominated |
| Golden Globe (64th) | Best Supporting Actress | Emily Blunt | Nominated |
Cultural Impact
Workplace Satire and Discourse
The Devil Wears Prada entered mainstream culture immediately as shorthand for a recognizable workplace dynamic: the demanding, brilliant superior who subordinates everything personal to professional excellence. Miranda Priestly’s most quoted lines—”That’s all,” “By all means move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me,” and “Details of your incompetence do not interest me”—circulated widely online and became templates for workplace humor. The film’s deeper argument—that Andy’s transformation represents a genuine moral compromise, not merely a fashion upgrade—became the subject of sustained cultural commentary in years following the release, as workplace culture discourse evolved around concepts of toxic management and the glamorization of overwork.
The film spawned parodies across television, appearing in episodes of The Simpsons, The Office, and Ugly Betty (the latter a series itself inspired by similar thematic territory). In 2023 and 2024, renewed critical discussions revisited whether Andy’s ultimate decision to leave Miranda’s employ represented empowerment or merely a genre convention, a debate that underscored the film’s continued resonance in conversations about ambition, identity, and professional ethics.
Fashion Industry Influence
The film’s depiction of the fashion industry—structured around a thinly veiled version of Vogue and its legendary editor Anna Wintour—generated significant discussion within the fashion world itself. Wintour, who initially declined to comment on the film, later acknowledged watching it and endorsed Streep’s performance. The film contributed to a broader cultural reconsideration of haute couture as legitimate cultural production rather than mere commerce, and is credited by fashion educators with increasing enrollment in fashion studies programs in the academic years following its release.
Impact on Cast Careers
The film marked a turning point for all three of its female leads. Anne Hathaway transitioned from the family-film roles of the Princess Diaries era into serious dramatic work, with subsequent projects including Rachel Getting Married (2008), Les Misérables (2012, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), and Interstellar (2014). Emily Blunt became a leading Hollywood figure, with the film serving as her North American breakthrough; she would go on to star in Edge of Tomorrow (2014), A Quiet Place (2018), and Oppenheimer (2023). Meryl Streep’s box-office standing was confirmed as extending across genres from prestige drama to commercial comedy, expanding the range of projects available to her.
Significance
The Devil Wears Prada became a landmark moment for fashion in film and popular culture, demonstrating that haute couture could generate both critical acclaim and broad commercial appeal when framed as workplace satire and character study. Its commercial success—nearly ten times its production budget—influenced studio decisions to invest in fashion-adjacent content, contributing to the development of reality programming (Project Runway, launched 2004, accelerated in the post-Prada environment) and fashion-focused drama in subsequent years. The film’s sustained cultural presence—remaining a Netflix and streaming staple two decades after its release, with periodic announcements of a potential sequel—reflects its status as a defining artifact of 2000s popular culture.