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  "path": "/devil-wears-prada-2-backlash",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-05T15:49:15.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.papermag.com",
  "tags": [
    "The devil wears prada",
    "Sex and the city",
    "Cult classic",
    "Movies",
    "Composite"
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  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nWhen Warner Bros. announced that there would be a _Practical Magic_ sequel, my phone was immediately inundated with notifications from every girl and gay person I know, plus all the ex-boyfriends I ever forced to watch the original. Which is to say: all of them.\n\n“This is so exciting!” they all said, “We are so back!” they proclaimed. And while the thought of sloping down a pitcher of midnight margaritas as the Owens sisters danced across the big screen yet again was, indeed, intoxicating, I couldn’t ignore a cautionary chill that crept up my spine like a demon boyfriend accidentally brought back from the dead. _Twice_.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nI have, both fortunately and unfortunately, been alive long enough to witness nearly every single one of our favorite films and TV shows, otherwise only semi-accurately described as camp cult classics, be ruined by every major production studio… and their inability resist the money-hungry urge to eke out every last cent they can from the nostalgia-pilled masses. (Rather than, you know, create something original.) Optimists might say: “Nicole and Sandra are back! Surely, they will save it!” To this, a sensible person would respond: both of them have already participated in absolutely abysmal sequels and reboots of their own.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nBoth _Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous_ , starring Bullock, and _Bewitched,_ starring Kidman, take the magic of the original IP and grind it up to produce nothing short of vaguely visually similar garbage. I will omit Kidman’s _The Stepford Wives_ here only because of a truly iconic performance by Glenn Close. The other two are slop meant to appease the masses. Slop through which even the faintest cries of Gracie Lou Freebush’s wit and brilliance can’t be heard over the cacophony of bad jokes and pallid references to the original _Miss Congeniality_.\n\nWere an entire cast’s returning enough to save a sequel, Hollywood wouldn’t have found itself drowning in such failures as _Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde_, _Hocus Pocus 2_ , _Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life_ , _Beetlejuice Beetlejuice_ , _And Just Like That…_ , or _Will and Grace_. Sure, the leads are back, but are they really? No, no, they’re not. And neither is the magic.\n\nOf course, the failure of revivals can’t just be blamed on actors slotting back into their original roles, because total reboots have seemingly been complete messes over the last decade. See: 2020's _The Witches_ , 2018's _Charmed_ , 2011's direct-to-TV movie _Mean Girls 2_ and the 2024 wide-release movie-musical _Mean Girls_. The list could, no doubt, go on.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTwo bright spots amongst all of this darkness are much further back: _Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle_ and _Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit_. Both sequels, both retaining most of the original cast while also adding a few perfectly placed new characters. You can’t _really_ go wrong casting ‘90s Lauryn Hill or any-time Demi Moore. Both manage to capture the sublime absurdity of the originals while pushing their respective stories to new heights. So how was it that these two movies escaped the fate of their peers? They believed in their audience and told critics to fuck off.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nNaturally, the perfect legacy of _Charlie’s Angels_ and _Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle_ would later be tainted by the 2019 reboot starring Kristen Stewart, who would later admit to hating the film herself.\n\nNone of these movies for and about women ever feel critically acclaimed when they premiere — largely because I see the critics themselves as idiots. (They are also misogynists.) _TIME_ lambasted Sophia Coppola’s _Marie Antoinette_ when it premiered, before naming it one of the best movies of the past 10 decades in 2023. _Practical Magic_ was eviscerated in the press. _Legally Blonde_ was initially written off as candied fluff with a decent leading lady, just as it was with _Charlie’s Angels_ and _Sister Act_.\n\nBut the latter two, rather than cowering to critics when it came time for the inevitable sequels, doubled down on their antics and believed in the intelligence of their audience.\n\n\nRather than turning their leading ladies into caricatures of themselves — the entire plot of _Legally Blonde 2_ is beneath Elle Woods — they let them tell the jokes, rather than turning them _into_ jokes. In _Legally Blonde_ , we believed Elle could get into Harvard, arrive for her first day in a fuchsia faux-leather pencil skirt (with a matching faux-fur collar-lined jacket), and eventually find herself victorious while solo-litigating a high-profile homicide case before a jury thanks to a generation's worth of Cosmo-girl know-how and newly found legal expertise. That we are then expected to accept the woman stomping around in an affronting barrage of terribly placed barrettes while haphazardly arguing an animal cruelty case through a script flatter than her hair, as the same Elle Woods in the sequel is as insulting to the character as it is to the audience.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nRather than resuscitating Miranda Hobbes and turning her into a lesbian struggling with critical race theory, let’s let her stay closeted in Brooklyn with Steve and find a new story to tell.\n\nUndoubtedly, fans of other genres of film have also experienced this devastating phenomenon. Every day, it seems, there’s a new superhero slogfest or dinosaur movie sequel or galactic soap opera that has men unleashing their inner demons; that is none of my business. They deserve such torture, but the girls and gays don’t! We deserve sequels and reboots that understand the beauty of the originals — we deserve to grow old with our favorite things without having them ruined years later. We deserve an end to the incessant rehashing of what was, and to allow new titans to enter the canon. Maybe straight men do too, but again, that is none of my business.\n\nIt isn’t any fun to live life this way. I would much rather keep my head in the clouds and pretend to be one of those people who say things like: “Just let people enjoy things!” But when the thing in question is undeniable _slop_ , there is only so much _slop_ one can consume before their head is pulled out of the clouds.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nPresently, there’s no telling when a dam will finally be erected around the torrent of reboots and sequels. In the coming years, we have _Practical Magic 2_ , _Legally Blonde 3_ , and _The Devil Wears Prada 2_ to contend with, and those are just the ones that are confirmed. (When _Variety_ reported a potential _Family Stone_ sequel being discussed following the death of Diane Keaton, I wanted to close my laptop forever.) And while the newly released official _The Devil Wears Prada 2_ trailer elicited the same deluge of texts from the girls and the gays as the _Practical Magic 2_ announcement did, I have reservations. The girls (including Stanley Tucci) are back. But is the script as whip smart? To be sure, the Miranda-does-n’t-remember-who-Andy-is bit ran its full course in the span of the trailer’s one minute and thirty-nine seconds, but still, as Miranda Priestly said in the original: “I [have] hope. My God, I live on it.”\n\nIf we can’t let old dogs lie, at least let them be full of joy and humor and unbridled sexual energy. Magic! Let them ignore whatever was said about their predecessors, and find something new to say, rather than parroting old stories and parodying themselves.\n\nAnd please, for the love of God, get Faith Hill on the soundtrack, just like in the original _Practical Magic_. That’s all.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n_Graphic Design byComposite / Images via Getty_",
  "title": "A Helpful Guide to Not Ruining Cult Movie Sequels"
}