The film’s villain is a conniving tech oligarch seeking to buy his way into fashion’s inner circle. Sound familiar?

In The Devil Wears Prada 2, we’re introduced to a very different Miranda Priestly. There was a time where the all-powerful queen of fashion – who is played by Meryl Streep and based on Vogue’s longest-serving editor, Anna Wintour – could end careers with a glance. But this time, she spends most of the movie taking orders herself. First, we see her at the behest of advertisers, then publishing magnate Irv Ravitz and his irritating nepo baby son. And it isn’t long before Benji Barnes, an eccentric billionaire, shows up and threatens to dismantle the excellence she has spent her entire career championing.

In the film, Benji is played – scarily well, I should add – by Justin Theroux. After a high-profile divorce, he has had a “glow-up”, which loosely translates to losing weight and boasting a deep mahogany tan. Post-divorce, he is now in a relationship with Emily – Miranda’s acerbic former assistant, played by the scene-stealing Emily Blunt, who is described as “every girl who ignored him in high school”. Benji’s inclusion in the story feels representative of the wider media landscape, where the whims of billionaires decide which parts of the old, pre-social media world get to survive. And for Emily, she’s learning that being associated with someone so powerful has the potential to help her finally step out of Miranda’s shadow. The romance between these diametric opposites – Type A fashion queen and a nerd who grew up to become one of the world’s richest men – provides a stream of comic relief. But beyond the laughs are a deeper – and bleaker – statement about how people with enough money can buy cultural power.

Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway shine in frothy sequel that smartly comments on struggling media industry

• This article contains spoilers for The Devil Wears Prada 2

• The Devil Wears Prada 2 review – a sequel? For spring? Groundbreaking

After a promotional blitz that has run the full gamut from haute (Meryl Streep on the cover of Vogue with Anna Wintour) to not (a heinous line of Target sweats), The Devil Wears Prada 2 is finally here, and set for very chic box office takings of over $200m in its first week.

Praised as one of the few Hollywood sequels to measure up to its beloved original, the movie sees Streep reunite with Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci two decades after the original movie’s release in a flurry of designer rags, withering put-downs and a slew of celebrity cameos. Surprisingly enough, it mostly works. At my screening on opening weekend, fans crowded to take pictures with promotional cardboard cut-outs and clinked cocktails as the lights went down. Read on for a spoiler-packed breakdown of the film, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Sequel a rare example of female-skewing movie leading the North American summer offerings – and highest opening weekend yet for a Meryl Streep film

Gird your loins: The Devil Wears Prada 2 has had a huge opening weekend at the box office, making $233m (£171m, A$323m) worldwide from an overwhelmingly female audience.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 earned $77m at the North American box office, and $156.6m internationally. In the US and Canada, the sequel bumped Michael to second place, though the musical biopic held on in its second weekend to earn $54m, falling only 44%.

There has been much talk of the long-awaited sequel making the most of body diversity. The reality seems to be one plus-size actor and gags worthy of the 00s

During the two-month endurance test that was The Devil Wears Prada 2’s global press tour, Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway hinted that the long-awaited sequel to the 2006 hit would champion body diversity. In interviews, both actors explained that while attending Milan fashion week they were surprised by how “alarmingly thin the models were”. As a result, Hathaway made “a beeline to the producers”, Streep said, to ensure that “skeletal” models wouldn’t feature in the film. At one premiere, Hathaway said she “thought the scene would be so much more enjoyable for the audience if we had just a wider range of bodies on display”.

Spoiler alert: only 15 minutes into the sequel the first weight gag lands, and it becomes clear that all the chatter around size inclusivity was, in fact, just simple size-washing. That means there’s just enough for the producers to tick the inclusivity box – mainly in the casting of the comedian Caleb Hearon as Miranda Priestly’s second assistant, and a quick glimpse of a couple of plus-size models including Ashley Graham in a catwalk montage – but not enough for any actual credibility. Then there are several wisecracks about weight, although remarkably only one reference to the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Now, that is groundbreaking!

Chloe Mac Donnell is the Guardian’s deputy fashion and lifestyle editor

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From celebrity cameos to lucrative brand partnerships, The Devil Wears Prada 2’s approach to maximising revenue is worthy of Runway’s finest

For a film that serves as a commentary on the perilous economics of today’s media landscape, it’s fitting that promotion for The Devil Wears Prada 2 has been so frank about its finances.

Speaking ahead of the New York premiere, Meryl Streep revealed she initially turned down the role of withering fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly in the 2006 original in a bid to extract more money from its producers.

Foreign language films often have their names altered for different markets and – for the most part – improve on them. Anyone up for a watch of I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money?

Since it is the sequel to a modern classic – an iconic film that managed to introduce no end of quotes and terms to the cultural lexicon – you could assume that The Devil Wears Prada 2 wouldn’t have to work much to attract an audience. But this is where you would be wrong.

For example, someone unfamiliar with the first film might wonder if, since the title invokes Satan, it might actually be a horror. Or maybe the name scans as an angry indie documentary about the role of designer clothing within this period of late-stage capitalism. And so it makes much more sense to do what the Vietnamese have done and simply call the film The Woman Who Loves Luxury Goods 2.

Glamour? Money? Hope? They’re so last season. With fashion magazines on their knees, where does that leave The Devil Wears Prada 2 – and its famously relatable heroine?

Runway magazine is collapsing. Miranda is eating in the cafeteria and flying economy. Andy is the new features editor. Emily is dating a billionaire. Somebody dies. Amelia Dimoldenberg makes a cameo. But the one unexpected detail in The Devil Wears Prada 2 that I can’t stop thinking about is this: Andy worries that she’ll never be in a position to unfreeze her eggs.

“Left New York for 15 years, not married – never found the right person, and my kids are at a doctor’s office on 85th,” she breezily reports to Emily when they reunite after 20 years. “They’re eggs,” she clarifies, adding that she is excited to have children. And in that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: was the woman who once had the job “a million girls would kill for” always this relatable?

Coveted £20 accessory to be marketed as part of sequel’s ticket deal – and is already being touted for resale from £130

In a recent trailer for the highly anticipated The Devil Wears Prada sequel, the cast are seen parading through the streets of New York City carrying an array of designer handbags, including clutches and satchels from Chanel and Valentino.

But among fans of the film there is a very different type of It bag in demand: a popcorn bucket shaped to resemble a structured tote bag is quickly becoming a coveted accessory.

Her rare cover appearance with Meryl Streep may be to promote The Devil Wears Prada sequel, but it also marks a shift from elusive editor to carefully curated personal brand

In the world of magazines, when someone announces they’re leaving a job, their colleagues will traditionally present them with their own personalised mock-up of the magazine’s front cover. Perhaps their face is superimposed on the body of a previous celebrity cover star. There are probably some witty cover lines referencing memorable office moments or their favourite snacks. It’s a rite of passage – and this week, Anna Wintour was bestowed with her very own cover. But instead of a jokey imitation bidding her adieu, it was the real, glossy deal, coming to a newsstand near you on 28 April.

In a somewhat surprising effort to promote the forthcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2, Vogue’s May issue sees Wintour share the cover with Meryl Streep, whose steely Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the fictional title Runway, is said to have been inspired by Wintour. “Seeing Double. When Miranda met Anna” reads the cover line. While Wintour has fronted various industry titles, including Interview in 1993 and Ad Week in 2017, it’s the first time an editor has placed themselves as the subject. In another fun twist, both Wintour and Streep are wearing Prada.

Vogue’s global editorial director says Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada ‘distant’ from the real her

After more than 30 years helming Vogue, and becoming a pop icon in the process, Anna Wintour has graced the cover of the fashion magazine alongside her Hollywood doppelganger, Meryl Streep.

The global editorial director of Vogue is photographed by Annie Leibovitz alongside Streep, who plays Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, a brash, ruthless editor of a fashion magazine thought to be based on Wintour.

It’s not about John Bishop, Anna Wintour or Bill Clinton, but … Screen stories about pop stars, actors, sporting heroes or politicians bend fact by steering close to the deeds, or misdeeds, of real celebrities. What’s behind their rise?

Any self-respecting cinemagoer will know the phrase by heart: “The characters and events portrayed in this film are fictitious.” It’s cinema’s ritual boilerplate disclaimer. “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental and unintentional.”

Lately, however, film-makers have been treating the fine print like a challenge. A clutch of recent releases has taken up a curious middle ground: not quite biography, not quite fiction, but something more slippery in between. Marty Supreme, for instance, spins 1950s table tennis wildcard Marty Reisman into Marty Mauser, borrowing Reisman’s forename and forehand while rewriting the rest. Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? mines the early career of standup comic John Bishop, only to rebrand him as New Yorker Alex Novak. And later this year The Prince, directed by Cameron Van Hoy and written by David Mamet, will refract aspects of Hunter Biden’s life through proxy Parker Scott.

Promo for the much-anticipated sequel, in which Streep is reunited with Stanley Tucci, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt, clocks up 2.5m views in eight hours

The first full-length trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 has been released, and given more details on David Frankel’s hotly anticipated follow-up. In the promo, Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly and her right-hand man Nigel, played by Stanley Tucci, are seen reuniting with Anne Hathaway’s Andy and, later, Emily Blunt’s Emily.

Priestly remembers neither, nor even her habit of referring to all her fashion magazine assistants as Emily – presumably on account of her withering alpha-editor status rather than, say, dementia.