Gird your loins: The Devil Wears Prada 2 has had a huge opening weekend at the box office, making $233m (£171m, A$323m) worldwide from an overwhelmingly female audience.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 earned $77m at the North American box office, and $156.6m internationally. In the US and Canada, the sequel bumped Michael to second place, though the musical biopic held on in its second weekend to earn $54m, falling only 44%.

Women made up about 76% of the ticket buyers, according to PostTrak exit polls; 74% said they would “definitely recommend” the movie to friends. Critics were a bit mixed on the sequel, which finds Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs working once more for Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly at the fictional Runway magazine in a much-depleted media landscape.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is the highest opening weekend for a Meryl Streep film by every metric, besting the $90m worldwide debut for Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again in 2018. It is also the biggest international and global launch for Emily Blunt, topping Oppenheimer’s $180.4m worldwide opening weekend.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 cost a reported $100m to produce – a significant boost from the first movie’s $35m production budget. But as the film-maker, David Frankel, told the Associated Press, “By the time you finish paying all the biggest movie stars in the world, you still end up with basically the same budget for making the movie as we did the first one.”

Stars Streep, Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci have been on a fashion-forward global publicity blitz for weeks, with glamorous stops in Tokyo, London and New York. Even Anna Wintour, the inspiration for Streep’s Miranda Priestly, has been involved this time, appearing with Hathaway on the Oscars stage and with Streep on the cover of Vogue.

The first The Devil Wears Prada opened in June 2006 and earned more than $326m worldwide, not adjusted for inflation. And perhaps more importantly, it firmly became part of the culture thanks in part to its ever-quotable script (“gird your loins,” “groundbreaking,” “that’s all”).

This weekend marks the start of Hollywood’s summer movie season, a crucial 18-week corridor that runs through Labor Day and sometimes accounts for about 40% of the annual box office. There are often Marvel blockbusters programmed as the season’s kickoff but the combined power of The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Michael wasn’t a shabby substitute.

“This is a really solid weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Comscore. “It’s this irresistible combination that more than makes up for the fact that there’s not a Marvel movie to kick off the summer movie season.”

It is incredibly rare for a female-skewing movie to led the first weekend of the US summer box office, which has largely been owned by Marvel movies in recent years. Prada did better business than last year’s summer kickoff Marvel movie, Thunderbolts.

The North American box office is running about 14% up from 2025, with about $2.8bn in domestic ticket sales to date.

Associated Press contributed to this report

Three people have died after a suspected hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship sailing in the Atlantic, while a British citizen has been taken to intensive care.

One case of hantavirus infection had been confirmed and there were five additional suspected cases, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.

The outbreak was reported on the MV Hondius, which was travelling between Argentina and Cape Verde. According to several online ship-tracking sites, the MV Hondius was just off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on Sunday night.

Two of those who died were a husband and wife aged 70 and 69 from the Netherlands.

The South African health ministry said the man fell ill onboard the ship and died on the island of Saint Helena, while his wife died at a hospital in Kempton Park, a city in South Africa.

A British man, 69, who became ill on the ship was taken to a private health facility in Johannesburg, according to the South African health ministry, which said he tested positive for hantavirus.

Hantavirus is usually caught through contact with urine or faeces from infected rodents, but in rare cases can spread between people. It can lead to severe respiratory illness.

The ship is operated by the Dutch tour company Oceanwide Expeditions, which said on Sunday evening that two crew members onboard require urgent medical care and the third fatality was still onboard the ship.

The company said local health authorities had assessed the two symptomatic individuals, but the ship did not have authorisation from Cape Verdean authorities to disembark people requiring medical care.

“The priority of Oceanwide Expeditions is to ensure that the two symptomatic individuals onboard receive adequate and expedited medical care,” a spokesperson said.

“We are in close contact with those directly affected and their families and are providing support where possible.

“Disembarkation and medical screening of all guests require coordination with local health authorities, and we are in close consultation with them.”

Dutch authorities have agreed to lead a joint effort in organising the repatriation of the two symptomatic individuals to the Netherlands, the cruise operator said, along with the body of the deceased individual.

The WHO said it was “facilitating coordination” between national authorities and the ship’s operators to organise the medical evacuation of two passengers with symptoms.

The MV Hondius, which can accommodate about 170 passengers and has 70 crew members, is listed as a polar cruise ship on the websites of several travel agencies.

One of the cruises offers an itinerary departing from Ushuaia in Argentina and sailing to Cape Verde, with stops in the islands of South Georgia and Saint Helena.

The UK’s Foreign Office said: “We are closely monitoring reports of a potential hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship Hondius and stand ready to support British nationals if needed. We are in touch with the cruise company and local authorities.”

Sir Keir said the UK is “ready to do the necessary work” with allies on Monday to give Ukraine the “support you need, the pressure you need to continue to put on Russia to make sure that we get a just and lasting peace, but one that is right for Ukraine”.