How ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ led to the first ‘Sex and the City’ movie

Without Miranda Priestly, there might not have been a Sex and the City movie.

This, at least, is according to former HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht, who sat down with Kristin Davis for the latest episode of the Are You a Charlotte? podcast.

The executive revealed that it had been a struggle to get the Sex and the City film greenlit. He commissioned a script for it, but the network was unable to finance the movie.

“It was one of those times when HBO became timid because it was getting out of our comfort zone for some people,” he said of producing the feature-length project.

Then, The Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006 and was a hit at the box office. The movie has since developed a cult following and its sequel is currently in production.

Seeing the success of the Meryl Streep-led film, Albrecht told fellow executives, “They just did our movie.” Building off of the momentum, the Sex and the City film was floated around Time Warner, HBO’s parent company at the time, and picked up by New Line Cinema.

The Devil Wears Prada “put it on a track,” Albrecht noted.

The former CEO said that he views the Sex and the City movie as the finale for the entire series, which, in his eyes, puts the film above The Devil Wears Prada.

“I thought our film was a bigger experience because it was the end of a journey that had taken years,” he said. “And for the first time, really, the show gave the audience what it had been craving.”

Listen to the entire episode of Are You a Charlotte? with guest Chris Albrecht below.