Magic Mike 3 Will Be Pretty Woman Meets All That Jazz, Says Writer Reid Carolin [Exclusive]
"Magic Mike's Last Dance" is coming soon to HBO Max and maybe even a GuyMax theater near you, and it will mark the conclusion of a trilogy of male stripper films that started with 2012's "Magic Mike" and continued with 2015's "Magic Mike XXL." Steven Soderbergh, who helmed the first film and acted as cinematographer and editor on the second one, is returning to the director's chair this time, while Channing Tatum will return as the titular Mike. Screenwriter Reid Carolin, who wrote the first two movies, wrote the screenplay.
"Magic Mike" was based on some of Tatum's own real-life experiences working as a stripper in Tampa, Florida, before he caught his big break in Hollywood, but it was up to Carolin to translate those experiences into a structured screenplay that would tell a cohesive story. Carolin has now crossed over into directing with "Dog," which also stars Tatum, and while he was promoting that film, we recently had a chance to talk to him about the direction "Magic Mike's Last Dance" will take.
You can read Danielle Ryan's full interview with Carolin here, but here is what he had to say about "Magic Mike's Last Dance:"
"I can tell you, as Channing likes to say, it's going to be the Super Bowl of stripping. I don't want to set the expectations too high, but I'm really excited about it. It's much different than the first two movies. Each movie is kind of its own genre, its own statement. This third one is much more like if you took 'Pretty Woman' and merged it with 'All That Jazz' or a Fred Astaire movie or something like that. I mean it's much different in tone. Central character is a woman, a really cool female character who, along with Mike, kind of creates the thrust of the movie that all takes place over in London. So I'm excited for people to see what we're up to. There'll be a lot to say over the coming weeks as we start shooting. Cause we start in about two weeks."
Carolin looks back at Magic Mike XXL
Soderbergh has said that Tatum's character will finally be in a relationship in "Magic Mike's Last Dance." That seems to dovetail with what Carolin is saying about the central character being a woman, though I'm curious just how much of it will be anchored to her perspective, since it sounds like he's talking about making her the new protagonist.
Carolin also talked about changing directions and making a new statement with each film. Though it still earned decent reviews, "Magic Mike XXL" was slightly less well-received than its predecessor. The movie has its fans, however, and it even helped give rise to the "Magic Mike Live" entertainment experience in Las Vegas. Carolin said of the sequel:
"I got to tell you I have such a soft spot for that film. And it's not like you never know how [a] movie's going to be received, but we got to make the first movie and we thought we were making 'Saturday Night Fever' and everybody went oh, this is girls' night out at the movies. And so for the second one we were like, let's just do something totally different and strange. And the themes of it became so kind of important to me. And they're part of what made us make this live show and really what we're doing in the third movie is continuing that sort of conversation. So I always wish that people received the movie a little bit better because when I watch it I feel so good about what we did."
"Dog" is now in theaters, and "Magic Mike's Last Dance" goes into production soon.