Channing Tatum & The Male Strippers Are Back As Magic Mike XXL Starts Shooting

‘It’s ON!’

Those are the words of Steven Soderbergh as he announced the start of shooting on Magic Mike XXL with a tweeted picture of the movie’s clapperboard, which you can see below.

You might be wondering what Soderbergh is doing there, seeing as he’s ‘retired’ from directing and has passed the helming reins for the male stripper sequel to his longtime Assistant Director, Gregory Jacobs. Unusually Steven’s not just there for moral support, but as one of the staff. The cinematographer’s name on the clapperboard, Peter Andrews, is a pseudonym for Soderbergh, and he will also edit the movie.

But while the shoot has started, there are still plenty of unanswered questions. For a start we don’t know much about the plot, other than what Channing Tatum told MTV a few months ago when he said, “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 shit-ton of fun. A shit-ton of just ridiculous stuff that you would never see in a movie.”

Tatum and Joe Manganiello are both definitely back, and while it’s previously been suggested Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer and Matthew McConaughey were also likely to reprise their roles in one way or another, they’ve still not been officially announced.

Channing also co-wrote the movie alongside collaborator Reid Carolin. The film’s due out July 2015.