The Devil Wears Prada reboot is one of the most anticipated in quite some time, and its box office success is illustrative of that. As of the time of drafting this, it's the 3rd highest grossing US film of the year, with forecasts expecting the sequel to blow the original out of the water. So we can all glam ourselves up in our finest giddy up and toast in Miranda Priestly's honor. But while we do so, we can take our rose tinted glasses off and look beneath the surface. DWP2's success while remarkable, is still well beneath its fullest potential as reports show that the lion's share of the box office success (76% to be exact) came from women, and 65% of them being millennial women (only 12% turnout from Gen Z women). And the demographic that unsurprisingly had the least amount of turnout is of course me and my fellow look maxing peers of 25 and under men with an only 2% turnout. When you rake up $200M at the box office in your first two weekends, it's hard to feel a sense of seeking improvement. But as an outside analyst, I can't help but rack my brain around how steep the demographic disproportionality was.
Success was largely driven by the original's omnipresence as a mainstay in 2000s culture, but for Gen Z, especially men under 25, DWP wasn't really much of a fixture of our childhood, whether it was because we were too busy watching Drunk History or because the movie came out when we were too young to care about fashion. But a lack of resonance with an acquirable demographic isn't an obstacle. It's an opportunity to win new viewers. If I were given the reins to help cultivate even more hype for the re-release, I would strive to first win over the hearts of Gen Z by getting them hooked on the original. Largely through clips of the original and edit compilations using trendy sounds and catchy captions like 'ugh, people don't eat like this anymore', 'bro was the godfather of mogging', 'today's fashion heads wouldn't survive this era'.
Moreover, I'd try to manufacture a trend out of the aesthetics and styles of the movie, given that Y2K fashion is already a hallmark in Gen Z fashion and culture. DWP could be the first movie for Gen Z to nominate as their proxy to it. Leaning in more to winning over the Gen Z 2000s fashion craze, I'd also suggest pseudo fashion show pop-ups, and streaming them on TikTok and Twitch. And some of the pieces shown at the fashion show can be commercialized as exclusive items sold on StockX and GOAT as collector's items. I also was envisioning in-character livestreams or a content series where the cast (in character) reviews user-submitted outfits and features them in a custom collector's Runway (the magazine in the movie).
Revenue Model
The Case for the Campaign: Revenue vs. Cost
Campaign Cost
~$1.5M
Est. Revenue
~$14M
ROI Multiple
9x+
Revenue Streams vs. Campaign Cost
Estimates are illustrative projections based on comparable IP campaign benchmarks. Brand sponsorships could reduce campaign cost to near zero.
Barbie perfectly laid the blueprint for how inherently 'feminine' perceived movies can have cross-demographic appeal through killer social media penetration infused with IRL penetration. The opportunity definitely was there for DWP2, but without the opportunity being captured they still won the hearts of a sizable portion of their old fans and likely a big chunk of new fans (including me).