Start saving up those singles, ladies and gentlemen, because the hottest show on Earth will soon be back and buffer than ever. The single greatest Hollywood franchise of this young millennium is getting a new and final chapter, by which we are of course referring to the ongoing stripper epic of Magic Mike.
Deadline ran an exclusive today announcing that star Channing Tatum and director Steven Soderbergh will return to the fabulously lucrative film series about a crew of good-natured dudes roving around America changing lives by taking their clothes off. Magic Mike’s Last Dance will reunite the pair after Gregory Jacobs took over in the director’s chair for the unimpeachable Magic Mike XXL, this being Tatum’s first collaboration with Soderbergh since 2017’s hillbilly heist picture Logan Lucky. (Franchise screenwriter Reid Carolin will also return to the team.)
Though the previous installment had a rather explicitly stated “one last ride” vibe about it, this third piece of the trilogy will more conclusively end the saga of Mike Lane, the small-time contractor moonlighting as rippling-abbed sex god for hordes of worshipful watchers. We can only hope that he’ll bring the old gang along with him: terse behemoth Tarzan, clean-cut boy next door Ken, hulking charmer Big Dick Ritchie, and chilled-out spiritualist Tito.
In the Deadline item, Tatum captures the titanic gravity of the situation by announcing that “the stripperverse will never be the same” once the curtain has been pulled back on this masterpiece like so many tear-away pants. Soderbergh shouted out the popular touring stage show based on the films in his comments: “As soon as I saw what Channing, Reid, and the Magic Mike choreographic team did with the live show, I said, ‘We have to make another movie.’ Mike Lane’s dream of connecting people through dance must be realized.”
Now that Mike and the boys have planted their flag on Myrtle Beach’s premier stripping convention and the rest of the southeastern United States with it, what’s left for this ensemble of beefcakes? Halftime at the Super Bowl would be an okay place to start.
Published 29 Nov 2021
Channing Tatum and co’s triumphant return is an endorsement for sexual empowerment, not exploitation.
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