Tatum displays his abs-olute power
LOS ANGELES — As a kid, Channing Tatum fantasized about playing superhero Gambit which he will in an upcoming movie. But he never dreamt he’d be headlining a male-stripper film franchise.
Take a bow Magic Mike XXL, a follow up to Magic Mike (2012), which surprised even Tatum when it scored more than $167 million at the worldwide box office.
In fact, the second film in the series is tracking so well, there have been early discussions about a third.
In the latest adventure, Tatum and his band of “male entertainers” gather to discuss the moving and shaking business of playing notso-tiny dancers for hire.
“We had a big CGI budget,” said Tatum explaining the return of the even more ripped bodies on display, including his.
Again loosely based on Tatum’s experiences as an 18-year-old Tampa stripper, the new movie features the same crew which reunites to attend one last blow out at a Myrtle Beach male strippers’ convention.
Beside Magic Mike, back are Ken (Matt Bomer), Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and sidekick Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias).
New to the mix are Jada Pinkett Smith, Amber Heard, Elizabeth Banks and Andie MacDowell who add to the fun which is in contrast to Magic Mike’s more serious tone.
In fact, the multiple dance routines tend to be more complicated compared to the sequel’s fairly straightforward plot, which was the intention.
“It was a little bit of an oversight on the last one that we couldn’t fit all the dance routines ... so we kind of designed how we were dancing better so we could show them all,” Tatum said.
“The first one was kind of tethered to reality and this real world of male strippers isn’t all that interesting.”
Certainly, Tatum “rocks it” the way he wanted to. And former New York Giants lineman Michael Strahan has an unforgettable cameo as a dancer.
“I can’t get Michael Strahan out of my head,” Bomer said.
The shooting schedule was tight, so it helped that there was a camaraderie among the cast and crew.
“One of the fun things about doing a road-trip movie is every day was a new adventure,” said Bomer. “We never stayed in one place for too long.”
They did have almost a week to film the climax with the female extras as audience members who were mostly from the North Carolina area.
As it turned out, they were loud but a little more in control than the folks from the first film cheering on the strippers.
“They were wildly well behaved,” said Tatum of the Magic Mike XXL background players. “In the first film, they ripped Matthew McConaughey’s thong off his body.”