Original Favorite ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’: Better Than the First?

Written by Eugene
Eugene

Eugene is an Instinct Magazine's writer for everything LGBTQIA+, from the hottest celeb tea to the most pressing community news. With a sharp eye for detail and a love for keeping it real, Eugene serv...

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Published May 7, 2026

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Two decades after the original favorite The Devil Wears Prada quietly cemented itself as a gay cultural mainstay—somewhere between fashion fantasy, workplace horror story, and “why do I feel personally attacked by a cerulean sweater?”—the impossible has apparently happened. The sequel has arrived, and people are not being subtle about it.

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Runway is back, and so is the chaos

The Devil Wears Prada 2 has been rolling out in theaters recently, and within hours of its release, social media did what it always does when something remotely iconic resurfaces: it lost its composure. Fans immediately flooded X (formerly Twitter) with reactions ranging from emotional spirals to full-on admiration for the return of fashion-world savagery.

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It would’ve been easy for this to feel like another unnecessary revival in an era already saturated with IP nostalgia. Sequels these days don’t always land—sometimes they just politely exist. But early reactions suggest this one didn’t just survive the pressure. It thrived under it.

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People are especially fixated on how the film manages to recreate the original’s sharp energy while updating its tone for a different moment in pop culture. The result, according to early audiences and Rotten Tomatoes chatter, is something that feels unexpectedly confident—like it knew exactly what it was walking into.

 

“Better than the original” is not being said quietly

The boldest claim circulating online is also the simplest: some fans are calling it better than the original. That’s the kind of statement usually whispered only after multiple rewatches and a glass of something strong, not typed publicly within hours of release.

 

 

 

Part of the excitement clearly comes from seeing familiar forces back in motion—Miranda Priestly’s controlled precision, the return of that unmistakable fashion-world pressure cooker, and the lingering fascination with characters who treat emotional availability like a design flaw.

 

 

 

 

And of course, there’s still the enduring appeal of Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway facing off across a world where clothes are never just clothes, and silence often says more than dialogue ever could. Add Stanley Tucci into the mix and you’ve basically reassembled a cinematic ecosystem that refuses to age normally.

The internet reacts: emotional damage, but make it couture

What’s striking isn’t just the praise—it’s the tone. Fans aren’t only impressed by the styling or performances; they’re genuinely moved. A recurring sentiment online is that the film feels oddly comforting in a year that hasn’t exactly been gentle.

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That’s not usually the emotional endpoint of a high-fashion workplace satire, but here we are. In a landscape where audiences are increasingly skeptical of sequels and franchise expansions, this one seems to have done something rare: justify its own existence without asking for forgiveness.

Original

So the question now isn’t whether it worked for fans. It’s how long it’ll take before someone starts quoting it in group chats like it’s always been part of the cultural vocabulary.

And more importantly—did it actually surpass the original for you, or is that just post-premiere adrenaline talking?

 

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