Devil Wears Prada 2 posts $10M previews
- 20th Century’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened Thursday night with $10M+ in previews, putting Disney’s sequel on course for a big May 1 debut. - Tracking now points to a $73M-$80M domestic opening, with some forecasts running higher, after roughly $20M in presales and 4,150 theaters. - That matters because a female-skewing sequel, not Marvel, is kicking off summer box office this year.
Box office stories usually start with superheroes in early May. This one starts with Miranda Priestly. The Devil Wears Prada 2 pulled in just over $10 million in Thursday previews, which is a strong first signal that Disney and 20th Century have a real event movie on their hands — and not the usual comic-book kind. The bigger point is not just the preview number. It’s that a fashion-comedy sequel aimed heavily at women over 25 is opening summer with the kind of momentum studios normally expect from franchise action movies. (deadline.com) ### Why does the preview number matter? Thursday previews are basically the market’s first live stress test. They show how much pent-up demand exists before full weekend walk-up business kicks in. A $10 million-plus start puts Prada 2 in serious company for a non-superhero sequel, especially because previews b(deadline.com)itles often do. (deadline.com) ### Is $10 million huge or just solid? It looks solid on its own, but the interesting part is the comparison set. The figure sits just below last summer’s Thunderbolts preview haul of $11.5 million, yet Prada 2 is tracking for a domestic opening in the $73 million to $80 million range, with some forecasts stre(deadline.com) the weekend, not just front-loaded fan turnout on Thursday night. (deadline.com) ### Who is actually showing up? The core audience appears to be millennial women who grew up with the 2006 original and now see the sequel as both nostalgia and event viewing. That matters because Hollywood has spent years acting as if only male-skewing IP can reliably launch summer. Prada 2 is testing the opp(deadline.com) a different crowd at blockbuster scale. (thewrap.com) ### Why are forecasts so high? Presales are a big reason. Deadline said the movie had roughly $20 million in advance ticket sales heading into the weekend, with strong exhibitor demand and lots of group-oriented bookings. That group behavior matters. A movie like this can function less like a standard (thewrap.com)sically, the ticket is only part of the product. (deadline.com) ### Does the old movie’s history matter? A lot. The first Devil Wears Prada opened to $27.5 million domestically in 2006 and finished with $124.7 million in North America and $326.5 million worldwide. Back then it was counterprogramming. Now the sequel is the main programming. That shift tells you how much the(deadline.com)ail affection, not just opening-weekend fandom. (deadline.com) ### What helps this movie over the weekend? Reviews and theater footprint both help. The sequel is playing in 4,150 theaters and has most premium large-format screens, while early reviews are stronger than the original’s Rotten Tomatoes score. Good word of mouth matters more for this kind of movie than for a p(deadline.com)ead of burning through die-hard fans on day one. (deadline.com) ### What’s the real takeaway? The real story is not that Prada 2 had a good Thursday. It’s that the summer box office may be opening with a different audience map than usual. If this holds through Saturday, studios will have fresh evidence that female-driven legacy sequels can launch at blockbuster size — and that the first weekend of May does not belong exclusively to capes anymore. (deadline.com)
