Two summers ago, Magic Mike wildly overperformed at the box office. It made almost forty million during its opening weekend, and as such, the talk of a sequel began almost immediately, as did the talk of a Broadway play. In the time since, however, the initial excitement has worn off and not a whole lot about the second movie and whether or not it was on or off has been shared publically. At least until this week when Tatum surprised everyone by offering an update.
Apparently, the movie is chugging forward because Tatum has finally started writing it. Check out the surprise Tweet he fired out below…
First of all, that fedora Tatum is wearing is straight up baller. It’s the perfect balance of eccentric and sophisticated. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s exactly the type of thing someone should be wearing while he writes a thinking man’s movie about male strippers. Bravo, for that bold and warranted fashion choice.
On a more practical level, however, the actual details we know about Magic Mike 2 are basically non-existent. A little less than a year ago, original director Stephen Soderbergh revealed there is an idea in play, an idea based on one of Tatum’s real-life experiences that they wanted to work into the first movie but was simply way too big to fit as a sideplot. It will supposedly play as a follow-up element, though, and unless Tatum has since changed his mind, that’s the route he will take with this script.
Regardless, it’s pretty clear Warner Bros will greenlight this movie as soon as the script is up to Tatum and Soderbergh’s level. The latter isn’t expected to be back to direct round two, but there’s a very good chance he’ll stay on as a producer and give his input on the project that will surely see its budget balloon beyond the first installment’s seven million dollars. Even if it triples, however, the studio should be looking at yet another nice pay day.
For a reminder of how much fun the original film is, you can take a look at the film’s trailer:
