Channing Tatum is back for the third installment of the Magic Mike franchise! In Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the eponymous exotic dancer finds himself struggling as a bartender after a business deal goes bust and leaves him broke. When a wealthy socialite gives him an offer he can’t refuse, Mike heads to London for one last hurrah, while training a new roster of talented dancers.
Watch the trailer for Magic Mike’s Last Dance below:
Before Magic Mike’s Last Dance hits theaters this week, we’ve rounded up some interesting facts about the film you might not know about. Check them out below:
1. Magic Mike is inspired by Channing Tatum’s life.
To the uninitiated, Magic Mike was actually inspired by its lead star and producer Channing Tatum, who worked as a stripper in Tampa when he was 18. In a recent interview with Entertainment Online, Tatum also shared that he would eventually tell his daughter, currently 9 years old, about his past as a stripper.
“When she’s old enough to watch them, we’ll have that conversation,” Tatum explained. “There’s no version of me not having the conversation of ‘Dad didn’t just do them in movies, I was an actual stripper,’ so I’m not gonna lie to her.”
2. Director Steven Soderbergh and producer Reid Carolin convinced Tatum to return to the role.
Channing Tatum has claimed before that he was done with the character of Magic Mike, but he is back with the third and final film in the franchise. According to the actor, it was director Steven Soderbergh and producer Reid Carolin that convinced him to give the character one more whirl.
“In my opinion, we had chewed up all the meat on the bone, story-wise. Pun intended, I guess,” Tatum told IndieWire. “They’re essentially movies about guys made for women. We didn’t plan on making a second one. Then all of our ancillary characters were so good and fun that we felt like, ‘Let’s do another movie and give those characters more real estate that we didn’t have before.’ Once we did that, we felt like there was no other story. Let’s just like get out of jail.”
Tatum added that when they saw how the Magic Mike Live shows changed the “dark and weird” world of male stripping and what that experience could be for women, Soderbergh and Carolin convinced him that there was more to the story of Magic Mike.
3. Salma Hayek replaced Thandiwe Newton who was originally set to be Tatum’s co-star.
Before Salma Hayek got the lead role opposite Channing Tatum, British actress Thandiwe Newton was originally set to be the lead actress in the movie. According to E! News, Newton had to step down from the role because of “family matters.”
4. Salma Hayek shares that she was “nearly killed” by Channing Tatum during a lap dance.
Tatum’s co-star for the latest film, Salma Hayek, appeared in Jimmy Kimmel Live! and talked about the complicated dance sequences in the movie, including a lap dance where she said she was “nearly killed” by her dance partner Tatum.
“You know, this one part that’s not in it where I’m upside down, and my legs had to be somewhere. But upside down, one loses sense of direction, and I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, so in the rehearsal, I went like, head down, almost hit my head.
“[Tatum] held on to my pants, but I was really concerned because my pants were going away, and I couldn’t remember if I had underwear or not in this moment. So, instead of putting my hands to protect my head, I just held onto the pants. He’s like, ‘Put your hands up,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no!’ Everybody came in, and kind of took me away from him, and he said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I said, ‘What’s wrong with me? You nearly killed me!'”
5. ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’ will end with a 30-minute dance sequence.
Looks like the third Magic Mike film is ready to wow the audience to the next level! In an interview with Empire Magazine, Soderbergh revealed that they will “blow the dancing up in a big way,” ending it with a giant dance sequence that lasts for more than half an hour.
“My job is, how do I make each one of these distinct? I can’t shoot them all the same way, I have to come up with a different approach for each dance. And that was really the challenge,” Soderbergh said talking about the challenges of such a large production.
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Magic Mike’s Last Dance opens in cinemas nationwide this Wednesday, February 8. Book your seats in advance and buy your tickets here.
