With $234 million in worldwide grosses, the opening of Disney’s Devil Wears Prada 2 will go into the record books as an unmitigated success.
It’s just too bad Gen Z didn’t show up.
“Not a lot of buzz for younger Gen Z and below certainly,” says Sean McNulty, noting the cast skewed older.
Women made up a whopping 76 percent of the audience that powered Prada 2 to its lofty heights, but women under 25 were a much smaller slice — 12 percent. Even more striking: Men under 25 accounted for only 2 percent of those who bought a ticket to the sequel.
“I had this exact experience in real life before I even saw these data points,” Christopher Rosen says, noting that his family’s babysitter, a high schooler, had never even heard of the Prada franchise.
“My theory is that the 2006 original is a rewatchable classic, and that was driven largely by cable TV,” Chris adds. “But the younger generation doesn’t watch cable TV. So not only are they just not into the movie, they don’t know it exists.”
Despite lagging behind with younger viewers, Prada 2 overperformed internationally and — combined with Michael ($54 million in second place) — gave the top of the box office its best showing for the first weekend in May since 2022, when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness led the field.
“This is above and beyond,” Sean says of the debut. “I think everybody should be very happy about where the movie business is at this point, going into the summer.”
