Tonight, I (Sofia) am going to the cinema with a friend to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2, and I am genuinely looking forward to it. Like many people, I loved the original film, which was based on the bestselling novel written by Lauren Weisberger (did you know she wrote the book after working for Anna Wintour?).

The original film was stylish, witty, aspirational, and endlessly quotable. Years later, social media is still full of clips, memes, fashion edits, and iconic scenes from the original movie. Judging by my TikTok and Instagram feed recently, the algorithms have clearly identified me as part of the target audience for the sequel.

The original movie, became a blockbuster, which raises an interesting economic question: Why makes a successful film?

I must admit this is not the first time I have thought about this question. My PhD thesis in Economics, completed over ten years ago, already focused on the economics of the creative industries and film success. Since then, the film industry has remained one of my favourite subjects within economics.

The economics literature has long been fascinated by the film industry because films are highly uncertain products. Economists often classify films as “experience goods”: products whose value cannot be fully known before consumption (Nelson, 1970). Before release, nobody truly knows whether a film will become a massive commercial success or fail completely. Producers may invest enormous budgets, famous actors, marketing campaigns, and carefully designed release strategies, but uncertainty always remains.

One may think quality alone determines success, but quality is not enough to create a blockbuster. A film can be objectively “good” and still fail commercially, while another becomes a cultural phenomenon through timing, marketing, social contagion, and audience identification. Research has repeatedly shown the importance of advertising, word of mouth, social interaction, and information cascades in shaping box office outcomes (De Vany and Walls, 1999; Eliashberg et al., 2006; Izquierdo Sanchez, 2014; Izquierdo Sanchez and Shaw, 2022).

This is particularly relevant for sequels.

From an economic perspective, sequels help reduce uncertainty because they already possess something extremely valuable: an established audience. Studios are not starting from zero. Audiences already recognise the characters, the visual identity, the emotional tone, and the cultural references. In economic terms, sequels benefit from accumulated cultural capital and existing consumer attachment (Izquierdo Sanchez, 2014).

So why was The Devil Wears Prada such a success? And will the sequel also succeed?

The original film combined ambition, status, identity, career anxiety, and aspiration in a way that resonated with audiences far beyond the fashion industry itself. It created iconic characters and moments while also tapping into broader questions about work, success, femininity, and lifestyle. The fact that the book had already become a bestseller certainly provided a strong starting point. However, this alone is not enough to create a blockbuster. For a film to become culturally successful, it must resonate far beyond existing readers and fan communities. Today, social media amplifies these dynamics even further.

Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have transformed word of mouth into something immediate, algorithmic, and global. Audiences do not simply watch films anymore; they actively participate in their circulation through clips, reactions, commentary, edits, memes, and trends. Consumers themselves become part of the marketing process.

Ironically, this also means that blockbuster success is increasingly connected to visibility and online engagement rather than only traditional advertising budgets. A film now competes not only with other films, but with every other form of entertainment fighting for attention in the digital economy. Perhaps that is why nostalgia has become so economically powerful.

In uncertain markets, familiarity becomes valuable. Returning to known characters and familiar stories provides comfort in an environment saturated with choices and constant information overload. Sequels offer audiences both novelty and predictability at the same time: something new, but emotionally safe.

So tonight, while watching The Devil Wears Prada 2, I will probably enjoy the fashion, the soundtrack, and the nostalgia. But I will also be thinking about something else: how cultural products become economic phenomena, and how sometimes the most successful blockbusters are not simply selling a story, but an identity audiences want to revisit.

References

De Vany, A., and Walls, W. D. (1999). Uncertainty in the movie industry: Does star power reduce the terror of the box office? Journal of Cultural Economics, 23(4), 285–318.

Eliashberg, J., Elberse, A., and Leenders, M. A. A. M. (2006). The motion picture industry: Critical issues in practice, current research, and new research directions. Marketing Science, 25(6), 638–661.

Izquierdo Sanchez, S., (2014). “Consumer and Producer Decisions Under Uncertainty: An Application From the UK Film Industry”, PhD Thesis Lancaster University: https://www.proquest.com/openview/2de79d8426209580c0e6c2c09ef27245/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y

Izquierdo Sanchez, S., and Shaw, A. (2022). “Analyzing prerelease consumer buzz and information cascades within the film industry: are there differences by gender and age groups?”, Journal of Cultural Economics, 34(2): 91-116

Nelson, P. (1970). Information and consumer behavior. Journal of Political Economy, 78(2), 311–329.