The Devil Wears Prada premiered at the LA Film Festival on June 22, 2006, and opened in US theaters on June 30. It runs 109 minutes. It grossed $327 million worldwide against a budget of $35–41 million. And for long stretches it is a better movie about a bad boss than a movie about a young writer.
That gap is the whole problem. The film knows what it wants to say about Miranda Priestly. It is far less sure what it wants to say about Andy Sachs.
Trailer, via FoxConnect.
Meryl Streep and the $4 Million Greenlight
Fox bought the rights to Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel in 2003, before the book was finished. The project sat there. It was not greenlit until Streep was cast.
That is the most revealing fact about this production. Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close and Catherine Zeta-Jones were all considered for Miranda. Streep was nearly passed over because people thought she was not funny. She felt her initial offer was too low. The producers doubled it to around $4 million, and she signed — and that signature is what unlocked the film.
So the movie that exists is the movie Streep allowed to exist. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, and was nominated as Best Lead Actress at the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs, the SAG Awards and the Critics’ Choice Awards. Variety’s read was that the film proved Streep could be a box-office draw on her own, opening the door to Mamma Mia! in 2008 and Julie & Julia in 2009.
None of that is wrong. It is just the safe half of the story.
Anne Hathaway Traced “Hire Me” in a Zen Garden
For Andy, Fox wanted a young A-list actress. Rachel McAdams was coming off Mean Girls and The Notebook, and the studio thought she would help the film’s commercial prospects. She turned down several offers. Kate Hudson was offered the part and declined over scheduling conflicts with You, Me and Dupree. Kirsten Dunst, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson were considered.
Hathaway wanted it. She traced “Hire me” in the sand of the zen garden on Hacken’s desk while they talked about the project. Frankel liked her enough not to require an audition, though Hathaway figured she was not the studio’s first choice and that he would have to be patient.
She got the role. It was her first leading part in a film for an adult audience. Producers later took note that she held her own opposite Streep, which fed into Rachel Getting Married in 2008 and Les Misérables in 2012 — the latter won her an Oscar.
That is a real career, built on a role the script does not fully serve.
Emily Blunt Read Her Lines on the Fox Lot
Emily Blunt’s path to Emily Charlton is the best casting story here. Over 100 actresses were considered. A casting agent taped Blunt reading some of the lines elsewhere on the Fox lot after her audition for Eragon. She read them in her own British accent, which interested Frankel because he liked her sense of humor.
Then Eragon cast Sienna Guillory. Frankel called Blunt and told her that while he would have cast her from the tape alone, the studio wanted another audition with her dressed more in character. She insisted on continuing to play the character as British.
Hathaway’s assessment of what followed: “I’ve never witnessed a star being born before.” Blunt’s own: it was “a night and day change.”
A Hurricane, a Divorce and a Paris Fashion Week
Andy Sachs has just graduated from Northwestern. She knows nothing about fashion. She is hired as junior personal assistant to Miranda Priestly, the cruel editor-in-chief of Runway magazine in New York City.
Andy plans to tolerate the abuse until her Runway connections land her a journalism job. She does not fit with her fashion-forward co-workers, especially Emily. She fails to arrange Miranda’s flight back from Miami during a hurricane and gets berated for it. She goes to Runway art director Nigel for advice, and he helps her pick clothes that fit the office.
Miranda notices the increased commitment and hands her bigger tasks. Andy outperforms Emily, who wants the Paris Fashion Week trip and is following extreme diets that endanger her health. Emily shows up sick, forgets the names of important guests at a charity benefit, and Andy steps in to save Miranda from embarrassment. Miranda takes Andy to Paris instead. Emily is horrified.
Nate breaks up with Andy after she snaps at him, disappointed that she has become one of the shallow, egotistical women she once ridiculed. In Paris, Andy learns Miranda’s husband has filed for divorce. Nigel tells her he has accepted a job as creative director for rising designer James Holt. Andy spends the night with a writer, Christian Thompson.
The Fashion Industry Stayed Away
Most designers and other fashion figures avoided appearing as themselves, reportedly for fear of displeasing American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who is widely believed to have been the model for Miranda. Wintour’s resistance to the film created difficulties that Streep’s casting helped offset.
The cameos that did happen: Heidi Klum, Valentino Garavani and Bridget Hall as themselves. Robert Verdi plays a fashion journalist in Paris who interviews Miranda. Uncredited appearances include Giancarlo Giammetti, Weisberger herself as the twins’ nanny, and Nigel Barker.
Stanley Tucci agreed to play Nigel only three days before shooting started. Principal photography ran 57 days across September to December 2005, mostly in New York City, with additional filming in Paris.
What Actually Holds Up
The comedy about a workplace is the part that works. Miranda’s demands are irrational, specific and funny. The fashion-world texture is sharp. Tucci’s Nigel is the only person in the building who treats Andy like an adult, and the film is smarter for letting him be the one who explains the job to her.
But the film keeps insisting it is about Andy’s soul, and it never earns that. Nate’s breakup speech is the movie telling us Andy has changed. We mostly see her get better at a job. The script wants the audience to feel the cost of ambition, and it has not built the relationship it needs to charge that cost against.
The romance with Christian Thompson lands worse. It arrives late, it is underdeveloped, and it exists mainly to give Andy one more thing to feel bad about in Paris.
The ending wants credit for a choice the movie has spent two hours making unattractive. That is a real idea. It is just not a finished one.
The Numbers
- Runtime: 109 minutes
- Premiere: LA Film Festival, June 22, 2006
- US theatrical release: June 30, 2006
- Budget: $35–41 million
- Worldwide gross: $327 million
- Streep’s salary after the doubled offer: around $4 million
- Principal photography: 57 days, September–December 2005
- Golden Globe: Best Actress, Musical or Comedy (Streep)
- Oscar, BAFTA, SAG and Critics’ Choice nominations: Streep, Best Lead Actress
The Order of What Matters Here
If you rank what this film actually accomplished, it goes like this:
- It made Streep a solo box-office draw again, which changed what she was offered afterward.
- It launched Emily Blunt, on the strength of a tape and a British accent she refused to drop.
- It gave Hathaway her first adult leading role and the credibility that followed.
- It turned a 2003 novel into a $327 million property.
- It made a sequel inevitable. The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrived in May 2026.
Notice what is not on that list. The film itself, as a piece of storytelling, is fourth or fifth on its own résumé.
A 6.2 Out of 10
The Devil Wears Prada is a well-made, well-cast, genuinely funny movie that has been remembered as something more than it is. Streep is the reason to watch it, and she is the reason it got made at all. Blunt is the discovery. Hathaway does the work the script asks of her, and the script does not ask enough.
The Devil Wears Prada is worth your 109 minutes. It is not worth the reputation it has built. The performances outran the material, and the material has been getting credit for the performances ever since.
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