Channing Tatum talks MAGIC MIKE XXL – set in a stripper convention; Steven Soderbergh involved

Forget the Avengers or X-Men, for many fans the only movie featuring beefy men dressed in various outlandish costumes (that they usually take off very quickly though) that they’re looking forward to, is the sequel to Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum’s male stripper drama Magic Mike. The first film, based on Tatum’s real life experiences as a male stripper, was a massive critical and commercial success, and left many a cinemagoer deaf with the shrill screams of excitement coming from certain members of the audience.

And I have a feeling those screams are about to get louder.

Tatum has spoken about the second film, Magic Mike XXL, a few times now already, previously mentioning how they would like to expand the scope a bit. And chatting with GQ recently, he spilled some more beans on the story, which this time finds our cast of loveable men attending a crazy male stripper convention, much like the insane ones that Tatum used to frequent.

“It’s an incubator for insanity. It doesn’t matter almost what you do onstage. I don’t want to put anything in black and white on a page, but if you’ve been to one, you know how crazy it gets, and now pour kerosene on that. You’ve seen ‘Magic Mike’. Now multiply that. Mob mentality. It’s just exponentially crazier. I thought it was absolutely insane.”

Yeah, this is definitely going to get much, much louder.

With the Oscar winning Soderbergh calling it quits on the direction front though, his long time assistant director, Gregory Jacobs will be stepping up to helm Magic Mike XXL instead. Now no offence to Mr. Jacobs, who appears to be a pretty fine director in his own right, but Soderbergh is obviously the bigger draw card, and the ones fans would like to see behind the camera again. Fans just like Channing Tatum.

“I lobbied probably harder than anybody else [for Soderbergh to reconsider retirement]. We had many, many nights of heated debate. I was, ‘I don’t f–ing get it! Why?’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t need it.'”

But just because Soderbergh’s name won’t be on the marquee, doesn’t mean that he won’t have a have on the film. Soderbergh explained that he’ll semi-coming out of retirement to be the film’s cinematographer and editor.

“I want to be there, but I don’t want to be the director. I want to be a part of it. I want to be in the band, but I just don’t want to be the frontman this time.”

Magic Mike XXL with probably most of the muscled cast of the first film return and is scheduled for release on July 3, 2015.

Last Updated: May 22, 2014