Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to the popular Magic Mike movie, began production last weekend.
While Steven Soderberg will not be the director for the sequel (director will be Gregory Jacobs) – Soderberg will be XXL’s director of photography, camera operator and film editor. “He (Jacobs) worked as a producer on the [2012] movie and has been Steven’s right-hand man for almost 25 movies,” Channing Tatum, who also stars in the second film, told The Hollywood Reporter last summer of Jacobs’ lead on XXL.
While the first movie was based on Tatum’s real-life job as a stripper in his late teens, Magic Mike XXL will be about a road trip where the strippers travel from Tampa to Myrtle Beach for a convention. “It will be a road-trip movie, and it will essentially be the movie that everyone thought the first one was going to be: crazy and fun and less slice-of-life and less drama,” the 34-year-old actor told The Hollywood Reporter of the sequel. “The first one, we had to make not so cheesy and campy; this one we are going to swing for the fences.” Likewise, Matt Bomer, who starred as Ken in the first film, told Ellen DeGeneres, “It’s a strip-off to the death…It is a stripper convention – I can imagine if you lock those doors, things can get a little rowdy.”
Filming kicked off on Sunday at Myrtle Beach Aviation, located on the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. Assistant location manager Jody Schiesser said crews also filmed some at 2nd Avenue Pier and Pier 14. “We wanted to shoot some b-roll when all of the people were on the beach,” he said of the crew’s choice to film during Labor Day weekend. The movie’s star, Channing Tatum was not on location but Schiesser said there will be actors in town for a couple of days before the movie is finished filming in about six weeks.
Magic Mike XXL will be in theaters on July 1, 2015.
Please keep us informed on all the activity on this. I live in the area and would like to catch some of the filming. Please put on your calendar if you have the info. Thanks for keeping us informed about everything that is going on in movie and TV production.