Well it’s about dang time, wouldn’t you say? The first photos from Kingsman: The Golden Circle have debuted, revealing new American spy characters played by Channing Tatum (in a cowboy hat!), Halle Berry and Jeff Bridges. Oh, and Taron Egerton’s Eggsy is back, too, and sporting a rather sharp orange suit — somewhere, Karl Lagerfeld just felt the most mysterious chill abruptly run down his spine during his morning Diet Coke.
Magic Mike was a movie about strippers trying to make ends meet in the midst of the Great Recession, the difficulty of modern romance, and the dangers of drug use. Magic Mike XXL is a movie about strippers stripping. And not a whole lot else.
There are a lot of highly complicated moves in Magic Mike. But, despite the degree of difficulty, Channing Tatum never once used a stunt double. All those backflips, grinds and spins were all his moves. Not bad, but when you consider Tatum himself used to be a male stripper, it all makes sense. This is just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies, which backs up on ya with Magic Mike.
A few days ago, Channing Tatum got honest about a few things, including the status of that second Ghostbusters reboot. The Magic Mike star made it sound like the project was stuck in development, toiling away under the watchful eyes of countless Sony execs. Today, it looks like Tatum was underselling the situation. In a separate interview with his producing partner (and Magic Mike XXL co-director), Reid Carolin, it was revealed that Tatum won’t be busting any ghosts after all.
The first teaser for Magic Mike XXL was a glorious thing of hilarious beauty, perfectly deploying Ginuwine’s “Pony” and promising that yes, this is a sequel we want to see. Now the first full trailer has landed online, and it is super pun-heavy, but also pretty charming and funny, as the gang returns with a few new additions for a rowdy road trip adventure.
Earlier today, we reported the rumor that not only has Captain Marvel been cast, but she’ll be making her first appearance in the already superhero-heavy Avengers: Age of Ultron. Having major superheroes make cameos or debut in other films from their respective studios has become the norm, so it’s hardly surprising to hear that X-Men: Apocalypse — which is said to primarily focus on the First Class cast — will feature a few cameos from other X-Men…including one pretty exciting mutant in particular.
Here’s something strange in the neighborhood: Deadline reports that Sony isn’t waiting for Paul Feig’s all-female Ghostbusters reboot (with its cast of comedy all-stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon) to debut before planning additional Ghostbuster sequels or spinoffs. They’re already getting to work on what the trade describes as a “guy-themed” offshoot with an all-male cast.
It’s great when a movie understands exactly what it is. ‘Magic Mike’ was an intelligently made Steven Soderbergh movie about life in Great Recession America. But it became a huge surprise hit in the summer of 2012—grossing $167 million worldwide against a budget of just $7 million—because it had Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and an assortment of the finest man-candy in Hollywood bumping and grinding with their shirts off. The marketing for ‘Magic Mike XXL’ seems to have an innate sense of this. The first poster is a picture of Tatum with his shirt off, pointing at his crotch where the word “Coming” is suggestively placed. And this teaser trailer is basically Channing Tatum (and the rest of his team of shredded male strippers) dancing, stripping, and then dancing with their shirts off. I smell box-office gold. Wait, no, that’s baby oil and Muscle Milk. But those things smell a lot like box-office gold when they’re in ‘Magic Mike XXL.’