Looks like Steven Soderbergh has added another film to his schedule, despite the fact that he’s stepping away from directing very soon. According to Deadline, the director will team up with Channing Tatum (who stars in the director’s upcoming film Haywire) for a film called Magic Mike, which is said to be Tatum’s passion project.
The film is an autobiographical tale for Tatum as it tells the story of his days as a stripper. Tatum will play the main character who teaches “a younger dancer how to hustle his wares on stage and off.” Reid Carolin will pen the script for what is said to be a low budget outing and Tatum will act as one of the producers. The film is aiming for a fall start date.
Tatum recently told Deadline the following. “This was a wild and pivotal time in my life and I couldn’t be more thrilled to go down the rabbit hole with Steven.” Soderbergh added, “when Channing talked to me about this, I thought it was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard for a movie. I said I wanted in immediately. It’s sexy, funny and shocking. We’re using ‘Saturday Night Fever’ as our model, so hopefully we’re on the right track.”
Seems like Soderbergh has his plate full. He has Haywire coming this August, Contagion coming October 21st, Magic Mike heading in front of cameras this fall and then in the new year he’s got The Man From U.N.C.L.E. starting up in February and finally Liberace which is hoping for a summer shoot.
It’s a good time to be a Soderbergh fan, looks like the director is going out with a bang. We’ll surely all miss him once he retires but at least he’s leaving us with five more films before that happens. And who knows, he may try to squeeze one more in. What do you think?