Magic Mike and his merry strippers are back with a sequel that's different in many departments (except wardrobe). Leena Tailor reports.
So, you have to ask, what's the "XXL" in Magic Mike XXL for?
"Everybody keeps asking and we've got to come up with a clever answer," says Channing Tatum. "It's all the stuff you loved in the first one, bigger and better," offers Adam Rodriguez (Tito). "And more laughter. The last 'L' is for laughter."
The new film steps back from the dark world explored in the first directed by Steven Soderbergh. It takes a light-hearted tone, which sees the boys road-tripping to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and attending a stripper convention for one last performance.
"I still don't know why they call them conventions because it's not a bunch of strippers selling stripper technology, like new thongs or props," says Tatum, who attended such gatherings in his stripper days.
"It's a bigger-than-normal room and there would be 50-70 strippers, 3000 women and it was insane. Stripperpalooza."
So as far as the rest of the sequel goes, think less the first Magic Mike with its dark drug tale of a plot, more Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, says the sequel's director Gregory Jacobs.
"It's a road trip to this convention and that's partly why I wanted to make the movie because I love that tradition of the road-trip movie. Whether it's The Blues Brothers, The Last Detail or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, there are so many great road-trip movies and the circuitous journey they take and the people they meet along the way is what's really fun about this."
One notable star of the first film isn't back this time - Matthew McConaughey, who played smarmy MC Dallas. And Alex Pettyfer's "The Kid" is absent, too.
"Chan and I spent time with Matthew in LA and Austin talking about how Dallas would evolve and how his character would fit into the sequel and it was a mutual decision," says Jacobs. "But Matthew's rooting for us and thrilled we made this movie."
Matt Bomer and Channing Tatum a scene from the movie Magic Mike XXL.
Many of Tatum's troupe of hard-bodied performers barely had anything to say in the first film. This time their characters have stuff like dialogue and motivation to deal with. Matt Bomer's Ken is a meditating New Ager. Tito (Adam Rodriguez) has ambitions in the world of frozen yoghurt. "Big Dick" Richie (Joe Manganiello) is just looking for Miss Right and Kevin Nash's Tarzan wants to be a painter.
Soderbergh bowed out of directing films in 2013 and has since been busy directing television series, including The Knick, and a play, The Library.
His long-time collaborator Jacobs (who helped develop and also produced the first film) stepped into his shoes, and Soderbergh is executive producer on XXL.
Joining the cast are Andie MacDowell - who appeared in Soderbergh's first film Sex, Lies and Videotape - Elizabeth Banks, dance star Stephen "Twitch" Boss, Amber Heard and Jada Pinkett Smith as club-owner Rome, who was initially written as a male.
"It's super-important to have a strong female and she's about as strong a female as you can find on this planet," says Jacobs. "It gives a really cool voice to it and that was something that was missing in the first movie, especially in this world of male stripping."
Jada Pinkett Smith and Channing Tatum in a scene from the movie Magic Mike XXL.
After walking on set to a bunch of "beautiful, chocolate men", Pinkett Smith discovered a whole new appreciation for the male psyche and its "two different heads".
"They were all getting greased up and my knees buckled. I had this physical reaction, then was like, 'Don't look, don't say anything, don't touch anybody'.
"The head below was like, 'Procreate!' and the head up top's like, 'Will's not here, so there's nobody to procreate with. Stay focused and anything with muscles - give it 50 feet.'
"I really did have to concentrate on behaving, being disciplined and not touching.
"I saw Matt Bomer last night and I owe him an apology because as soon as I hugged him I put my hand on his chest and [started] rubbing away.
"Your senses just blind you and now I see how dudes get into trouble."
A scene from the movie Magic Mike XXL.
Pinkett Smith sees a parallel between Magic Mike and Fifty Shades of Grey. "Women are getting switched on and we're on a journey. I don't know if Fifty Shades was necessarily it, but it revealed something about the female psyche and that as women we're ready to come out of the shadows about what's real for us. I think men don't believe that women fantasise and have certain desires and needs, so these projects are going to at least open up a conversation."
Adds Manganiello: "Male stripping started in the late 70s so it's interesting it has taken until now for us to start exploring this or for women's voices to be heard. We're here to give them what they want."
But it's not just for the ladies, insists Jacobs. "The thing I loved about the first movie is that women enjoyed it, but guys did, too," he says. "There's a guy's story there. As much as it's funny, sexy and dirty in a great way, the friendship that these guys have on the road and the crazy adventures they go on - for me as a guy - was really entertaining and fun."
A scene from the movie Magic Mike XXL.
Soderbergh's movie started as a small-budget, indie project (made for US$7 million and raking in US$167 million) exploring Tatum's younger years as a stripper in Florida. But even then, the cast realised this was the start of something big.
Manganiello recalls: "When I realised there were competing studio heads standing in the back watching our dance routines day-after-day-after-day, it was like, 'Man. There's going to be a bidding war. Some studio's going to buy this. Somebody's going see what I just did to that girl'."
And what of a further Magic Mike, presumably titled XXXL?
Tatum recently confirmed that a Magic Mike Broadway musical is in the works.
Soderbergh is on board, as is Tatum's writing-producing partner Reid Carolin, who expects the production will be "a place where women can scream at the dancers and throw money".
