The Devil Wears Prada 2 helmer David Frankel has confessed that he “never imagined” directing a sequel to the 2006 fashion flick.
David Frankel “never imagined” The Devil Wears Prada 2 being made.
The 67-year-old director is back behind the camera on the hotly anticipated sequel to the 2006 comedy-drama flick set in the fashion world – which sees Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci all reprising their roles – but confessed that he previously lacked the “imagination” to bring the characters back together.
Frankel told The Metro newspaper: “There was immediate talk, of course, when the movie was successful initially. We love the characters, we love the actors, why wouldn’t you want to see them?
“But we honestly did not have the imagination to figure out how they might get back, not just get back together.
“Obviously, they could run into each other, but to put them into an orbit where the dynamics were similar seemed impossible and also very repetitive like, oh God, we’re just gonna watch Miranda (Priestly) be mean to Andy (Sachs) again. What is she going to learn?”
Frankel also confessed that the crew were concerned that the sequel wouldn’t live up to the original film – which proved successful both critically and commercially when it was released two decades ago.
The Marley and Me filmmaker said: “So many things have to go right, so much luck has to happen. You look back and it’s like somebody making a hole in one.
“It’s one of the reasons we resisted the idea of making a sequel ever because how could lightning strike again? This time you know what the goal is and you’re trying to manufacture that lightning and that’s a whole different kind of pressure.”
Despite the success of The Devil Wears Prada, Frankel recalled the film being “very hard” to make.
He explained: “Meryl wasn’t happy all the time because she kept her distance from the younger actors, and so it wasn’t such a happy experience for her socially.
“And then Annie was going through some personal stuff, Emily was going through some personal stuff, we were struggling to make the movie, the hours were crazily long.
“We failed miserably in many, many ways. It was just a really hard shoot.”
However, the Jerry and Marge Go Large helmer says that production on the sequel was a much happier affair.
Frankel said: “This was joyful every minute, honestly, I don’t want to gloat about it, but it was four amazing movie stars working at the peak of their game and connecting with chemistry that was 20 years old and therefore ripened in a fantastic way.”
The director admits that he has suffered “many, many sleepless nights” as he waits to see how the world responds to The Devil Wears Prada 2.
He said: “In the movies, ‘Nobody knows anything’ is an important mantra. You can have a great script and actors and somehow the chemistry still has to boil up in a way that this magic happens.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 director David Frankel never expected to make sequel
