The Devil Wears Prada 2 has drawn praise for featuring artwork that mimics AI-generated style but was created by a human artist. Artist Alexis Franklin revealed she painted the image of Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly as a fast-food worker at director David Frankel's request. The film arrived in theaters this weekend.
The sequel to the 2006 hit The Devil Wears Prada opened in theaters on Friday, bringing back Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton, and Stanley Tucci as Nigel Kipling. The story follows the characters amid challenges in declining print media. New cast members include Kenneth Branagh, Simone Ashley, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, B.J. Novak, Pauline Chalamet, Rachel Bloom, Patrick Brammall, Conrad Ricamora, and Lady Gaga, with Tracie Thoms and Tibor Feldman reprising roles from the original film written by Aline Brosh McKenna and directed by David Frankel. Alexis Franklin shared on Instagram that she created an AI-style meme for the movie showing Miranda as a fast-food worker with the caption “Would you like some lies with that?” “I got to paint this at the request of [director] David Frankel for The Devil Wears Prada 2 (it shows up in the movie),” Franklin wrote, posting a time-lapsed video of her process. She added, “Absolutely no disrespect to Queen Meryl, but this is something I would’ve painted in my free time, so when they asked me to do this it was nothing but fun.” On Saturday, Franklin noted she was “flooded with comments of relief that this gag in The Devil Wears Prada 2 was created by an actual human (me),” and urged, “these companies should get their flowers when they hire an artist.” Social media users celebrated the choice amid concerns over generative AI in entertainment. One X user wrote, “OMG this one was actually made by an artist??? And it was made to look AI?” Another posted, “They really said and FUUUCKKKK AI!!!! Everybody CHEERED.” Fans remarked, “Currently obsessed with the fake AI artwork they used to criticize AI on The Devil Wears Prada like… THEY COMMISSIONED AN ARTIST TO ILLUSTRATE AN AI LOOKING PHOTO…. This fucking movie is 10s and 10s EVERYWHERE,” and “The bar is truly in hell.” A commenter on Instagram said, “So refreshing it not being AI.”
