Sodbergh's 2012 film Magic Mike, a dramedy loosely inspired by Channing Tatum's real-life experience working as a male stripper, would be successful enough at the box office to warrant a sequel. That's what happened as the sequel, Magic Mike 2 has been confirmed and it's rumored to be titled Magic Mike XXL.
According to Screen Rant, The original plan was for Magic Mike 2 to be a roadtrip movie that's heavier on the broad comedy than its predecessor; in a recent interview with MTV, Tatum confirmed that is still the approach on the sequel. He and Magic Mike screenwriter Reid Carolin have been hard at work on the script for the followup these past couple months, but it was only in recent weeks that we learned the sequel will be directed by Gregory Jacobs and not Soderbergh.
During the aforementioned MTV interview, Tatum also confirmed the plan is to bring back the main cast of the first Magic Mike installment, expressing his confidence that this will happen while also admitting "Obviously no one's deals are done, which is always kind of scary." It might be tricky to get newly-minted Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey back to reprise his scene-stealing turn as Dallas from the first movie, though costars Joe Manganiello, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez, Kevin Nash, and Cody Horn should be easier to secure for the sequel.
In addition, Tatum shed more light on what he and Carolin have in mind story-wise for Magic Mike 2:
"This one will be a road trip movie. Without giving a lot away, we don't wanna make it a really serious, slice-of-life movie. We want to have reality in it, but we don't want to make it some dark drama. There was some darkness in the last one that I think surprised people and shocked people. This one, we want there to be a lot of conflict and a lot of struggle, but we also want there to be a s**t-ton of fun. A s**t-ton of just ridiculous stuff that you would never see in a movie."
Warner Bros. has officially scheduled Magic Mike 2 for a theatrical release in the U.S., beginning on July 3rd, 2015.
