Readers of GQ held captive in the flighty mind of high-functioning alcoholic Channing Tatum have learned that the "Magic Mike" sequel, the critically acclaimed Steven Soderbergh film based on Tatum's previous stripping career, will revolve around his "absolutely insane" experiences of attending stripping conventions.
The plot of what may be titled "Magic Mike XXL" is apparently "exponentially crazier" than "Magic Mike." From GQ:
"We cut out so much stuff that was just really juicy fun things to happen in a movie that you haven't seen before," he says. One of the conventions he attended was in Raleigh, North Carolina. They went en masse in his buddy's van and danced for 3,000 women. "The women would come from miles and miles around," he recalls. "Then you lock the doors and you say all bets are off. It gets zany and crazy, and it's a wild ride. It's an incubator for insanity. It doesn't matter almost what you do onstage. I don't want to put anything in black and white on a page, but if you've been to one, you know how crazy it gets, and now pour kerosene on that. You've seen Magic Mike—now multiply that. Mob mentality. It's just exponentially crazier. I thought it was absolutely insane."
To reiterate, everyone is insane:
Not just the women, but the other strippers, too. "They're just so out there you're in an alternate reality. Even as a 19-year-old kid, I just couldn't believe this world I was in. These guys, some of them are really cool, some of them are completely, like, hippies, some are completely meatheads and steroid-crazy freakazoids, other ones are stuck in the '80s, and some of them are an everyday Joe that has a construction job, and some of them are businessmen. One guy was an attorney during the day. There's so much salacious and dangerous stuff going on around you, but it's fun at the same time, as a 19-year-old kid—money, women, a good time. I'm lucky—I don't have a drug addiction, I didn't get anyone pregnant. I probably got really lucky."
Soderbergh, who has retired from his illustrious directing career, will stay on instead as the camera operator, director of photography and film editor. His producing partner, Greg Jacobs, will direct.
Indeed, the whole thing sounds pretty insane.
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