Devil Wears Prada 2 made $75M and I need to sit with that

Okay so the sequel I told myself to be suspicious of just opened to a projected $75–80 million domestic. Possibly $90 million. And I have to be honest with you: I don't know what to do with that.

Here's the thing. The original is a perfect closed story. Andy gets out. Miranda stays. The whole movie is about what it costs to become someone you don't want to be, and she chooses not to. That's the ending. It's done. The sequel exists because the IP machine looked at $326.7 million grossed on a $40 million budget and saw unfinished business, which is not the same as a story that needs telling. And I said that. Out loud. To multiple people. [pause] And then the audience voted, and they voted hard, and now I have to reckon with the possibility that the crowd was right and I was being a snob about it.

Because here's what I actually believe: sometimes a movie earns its sequel not because the story demanded it but because the people in it are so good together that watching them again is its own thing. Meryl Streep. Anne Hathaway. Emily Blunt. Stanley Tucci. That's not nostalgia bait. That's a cast. And if the audience showed up for the cast and not the IP machine, maybe I owe this one a fair watch before I file my verdict. I'm not saying I was wrong. I'm saying the jury's still out. And I hate that.