“The Devil Wears Prada 2” feels more like a product than a movie

While forging a routine path through JFK airport earlier this month, my partner spotted a few not-so-routine sights. No, it wasn’t just the unusually long lines at TSA, courtesy of the government’s reluctance to fund what has become an essential service. And there was certainly nothing abnormal about the airport being crowded with throngs of people still in their pajamas ahead of a 7 a.m. flight. What struck him as strange — and flabbergasted me, the moment my groggy eyes snapped open to the photos he sent me — was the parade of multimedia signage around the terminal advertising a small indie film you’ve probably never heard of, “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”

Just kidding. Obviously, you’ve heard of “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” There are few people in the world who haven’t, if the extent of the film’s advertising is to be believed. Even if you’d somehow spent the last 20 years completely oblivious, avoiding anything related to “The Devil Wears Prada,” it’s likely that you’ve been thrust into this world of high fashion and huge egos by the massive marketing push for the film’s sequel. Practically everywhere you look, there’s Meryl Streep’s fictional editrix-in-chief, Miranda Priestly, and Anne Hathaway’s plucky assistant-turned-editor, Andy Sachs, ready for their second big-screen outing few were asking for but everyone will watch.

Over at JFK, the ads stand tall and wide, sprawling through just about every corner of Terminal 8. The outside rail of a moving walkway displays the film’s title and logo in alternating red and white color schemes, while the latest trailer frames weary travelers hustling down the platform, trying to get to their destination without delays. Before boarding an escalator, one must pass a gargantuan wrap-around ad big enough to sport the film’s entire cast, including supporting players Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. And then there are the rectangular prisms jutting out of the floor, standing 20 feet apart from the last, with LED screens blasting clips from the movie into viewers’ subconscious. With their prime, costly placement in thoroughfares that hundreds of thousands of people walk through every day, these are more than mere advertisements; they’re glowing monuments to Big Sequel — extremely compelling (and telling) portraits of American decadence, and how art is commodified into a product meant to sell, sell, sell.

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The marketing doesn’t stop there, not even close. Currently, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and its distributor, 20th Century Studios (which, it’s worth noting, is owned by Disney), have collaborations with Grey Goose vodka, TRESemmé haircare, Target, Old Navy, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Condé Nast. At the same time, Disney is brusquely cross-promoting their other titles alongside the film at every opportunity, pursuing the two words every advertising exec dreams of: brand synergy.

If “The Devil Wears Prada” was a successful meeting of culture and business, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” — at least from a marketing standpoint — is a bleak example of how, if enough people enjoy it, all culture will eventually become business. Gone is the film that stood out from a crowd of summer blockbusters with its smart script and chic sensibilities. In its place is the “Devil Wears Prada” Happy Meal experience, designed to market the sequel by reducing the film to its most memorable moments and divorcing it from all of the qualities that allowed the original movie to stand the test of time.

While it’s not uncommon for a studio to burn money promoting a highly anticipated sequel, seeing these resources allocated to a property like “The Devil Wears Prada” is somewhat unusual. Released in the summer of 2006, the film was a big hit, garnering positive reviews from critics and instant adoration from audiences, who understood the movie was far more complex than the reductive “chick flick” label many had been quick to slap onto it. Aline Brosh McKenna’s screenplay was wickedly clever, and David Frankel’s direction was appropriately becoming for a film about fashion publishing. Factor in a knockout cast delivering a handful of terrific performances, and “The Devil Wears Prada” had the perfect recipe to endure.

However, the film wasn’t exactly a studio tentpole. Despite garnering an Oscar nomination for Streep and an ingenious bit at that year’s ceremony, “The Devil Wears Prada” didn’t have the immediate cultural cache of something like its equally memeable predecessor, “Mean Girls.” For years, people talked about it as one of the few movies that, if you ever caught it on TV while channel surfing, you’d stop what you were doing and watch the rest of the film. As social media took hold, so did the conversation about the film’s “real villain.” (There isn’t one, as I outlined a few years back.) From there, the movie was immortalized in the meme canon with Andy’s Chanel boots and Miranda’s famous cerulean monologue. Reciting that monologue in its entirety might’ve been a fun party trick, but it was also one of the film’s badges of honor, proof that “The Devil Wears Prada” was unique enough to merit fans’ affinity for the next two decades.

(Stefania D’Alessandro/Getty Images) A view of the experiential hub inspired by the editorial office of “Runway”, the fictional magazine featured in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada 2” in Milan, Italy.

But such fervent veneration is a double-edged sword, especially for a film that has as much to offer in every meticulously manicured frame, song choice, tailored costume, witty one-liner and bit of dramatic resonance as “The Devil Wears Prada.” When the sequel was greenlit, there were no doubt hundreds of hours of marketing meetings, where executives decided which aspects of the first film could be played up to promote the sequel. That’s likely why, if you’ve seen any of the clips or trailers for “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” there is only a loose sense of the film’s actual plot. Instead, the trailers focus on Miranda’s withering put-downs and Andy’s former fashion-deficient way of dressing. (An entire scene where she and Tucci’s Nigel Kipling go back to the Runway closet, just so he can tease her again? Come on.)

When the film’s first trailer premiered during this year’s Grammy awards, it was veritable fan service. But only for the kind of fan who enjoyed the first film for its scathing remarks, rather than its singular tale of a woman caught between two worlds, trying to figure out which one fit her best — and how deeply alienating they could both be, depending on the circumstances. It was as if the trailer catered to the fans who loved “The Devil Wears Prada” as an idea, rather than as a movie. Ironic, considering the first film’s teaser trailer was simply a sequence from the movie, condensed and re-edited, but told prospective viewers infinitely more about the film without having to say anything narrative-specific.

In the weeks that followed, the sequel’s marketing intensified and spread at an unprecedented rate. Pop-ups in Los Angeles and New York offered a free novelty edition of Runway, now listed for thousands of dollars on eBay. Ads appeared in subway stations, on billboards and, of course, in airports. Vogue put Streep on its May cover, dressed as Miranda, seated next to Anna Wintour — once reluctant to accept being the inspiration for the character, but now embracing it to sell magazines. Lady Gaga and Doechii collaborated on a song for the film’s soundtrack, with more Gaga music and a cameo appearance rumored to be on the way.

Then, there are the clothing collaborations. Old Navy’s is somewhat tasteful and tongue-in-cheek, offering a cable-knit cerulean sweater with a charming red high-heel logo, tote bags and tops with a few of the movie’s key phrases printed on them. Target’s collection, on the other hand, is one of the most ghastly sartorial abominations ever made, let alone sold for real money. One shirt screams “PARIS” in all caps, while another says, “You’re not going to Paris,” which isn’t even a line from the film itself, but rather from an episode of “The Office” where Michael Scott becomes obsessed with “The Devil Wears Prada” and walks around doing his best Miranda. Imagine someone you know, strolling into a gathering wearing a ratty t-shirt with a (seemingly) AI-generated illustration of a bagel, coffee and sunglasses on it, featuring the words, “DID SOMEONE EAT AN ONION BAGEL?” in highly stylized type. Would you not politely take them aside and ask them if they’re going through something, and how you can help? I’m not sure there’s any other logical route.

Now, I haven’t seen the sequel yet. I’m dying to, as you can probably tell. And I deeply hope it will be good, though the part of me who has seen the first movie hundreds of times and could write thousands more words about its excellence is understandably skeptical. Perhaps all of these inane brand collaborations are an ironic tie-in — a commentary on how the print industry has been forced to commodify itself to focus on brands as a larger entity, rather than relying on the success of individual magazine titles. But that would be giving a lot of credit to a movie that has yet to prove the reason for its existence; a film that, by all available accounts, looks aesthetically like a warmed-up, overly digitized, Super Bowl commercial version of its progenitor.

Perhaps if there were a measurable commitment to promoting “The Devil Wears Prada 2” in a way that aligns with the first film, this unnecessary spectacle wouldn’t feel so grating. But as it stands, these product partnerships degrade the value of the original film and the property as an artistic entity. It’s sort of like if Andy Warhol slapped his name on a can of Campbell’s soup — Warhol x Campbell’s Chicken & Stars — instead of painting them as pop art.

And I get it, studios want to recoup their money. Everyone’s salaries are far higher than they were for the first film, and this sequel cost oodles more to produce. But there’s no reality where “The Devil Wears Prada 2” doesn’t rake in massive amounts of money just on its name alone.

And that’s the problem: A sequel of this size can stand on its own. Putting a red pump on a can of Diet Coke isn’t going to be the factor that sways ticket sales. One might call it a way to celebrate the legacy of the first film, but that movie’s substantial legacy looks far less sturdy when it’s commodified and resold. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” marketing campaign is so garish and transparent that it feels more like an in-universe joke from the first movie, rather than a revelry. Characters in the first film all-out derided things that were poorly made for the sake of consumer attention. Nigel once told Andy, “I’m sure you have plenty more polyblend where that came from,” and now Target is peddling its synthetic clothing collab. It’s not just that all of this promotion is missing the mark; it’s assuming that fans of the film overlooked the original movie’s messaging about being wary of what’s being sold to them, and how.

But maybe that’s just the natural result of “The Devil Wears Prada” becoming so massively popular throughout the years. Maybe there was no way to avoid this if the film was ever to get the respect it deserves. And maybe I’ve even picked up that novelty edition of Runway magazine myself. I’ll never tell.

My one hope, though, is that none of this key-jangling makes it into the actual film, that no viewer has to have a callback waved in front of them (at least more than once) and asked to clap their hands and bark like a seal. It’s incredibly frustrating that one of the smartest, most sophisticated studio films of this century — one that has managed to prevail past male critics’ derision and the fashion industry’s blackballing — is being reduced to a product, made to drive the sale of other products. “The Devil Wears Prada” is the fantastic film that it is because McKenna, Frankel and the entire cast and crew clearly understood that what they were working on was more than just a studio film; it was a story that could cleverly push the boundaries, and ask questions of its audience that they never expected to be confronted with when they sat down for a pithy movie about a fashion magazine. “The Devil Wears Prada” was always more than it appeared to be from the outside. Its sequel can only hope to say the same.