Magic Mike first gyrated his approach onto our screens again in 2012 – the brainchild of star Channing Tatum, drawing on his real-life expertise working as a dancer in his youth, and director Steven Soderbergh. After bowing out of directing duties for sequel Magic Mike XXL, Soderbergh is again on board for the pair’s ultimate boogie, Magic Mike’s Final Dance. Returning to the franchise for this third instalment, charting the inception of a Magic Mike stage present, Soderbergh’s precedence was specializing in the factor that began all of it: the dancing.
“We needed to blow the dancing up in an enormous approach,” the director tells Empire, promising an epic blowout sequence to wrap up Magic Mike’s trilogy. “We have now this dance quantity with Channing and Salma [Hayek] proper up entrance. After which the final 30-plus minutes of the film are simply this large dance sequence.” It’s a finale that posed all types of challenges for the legendary filmmaker. “My job is, how do I make every one in every of these distinct? I can not shoot all of them the identical approach, I’ve to give you a unique method for every dance. And that was actually the problem.” Fortunately, a South London theatre had loads of methods up its tear-off sleeves. “We’re staging all of the sequences on this pretty outdated theatre, the Clapham Grand,” Soderbergh explains. “That was enjoyable, there’s not a foul angle available in that place…”
In addition to the dance numbers rising in scale, Final Dance additionally sees Mike in a dedicated partnership for the primary time, with Salma Hayek’s Max – a key dynamic for the threequel. “The primary movie was a reasonably simple rendering of a set of characters who exist in a sure milieu that hasn’t modified since its inception. And the second movie was pushing out slightly bit to speak about what girls are on the lookout for on an evening out during which fantasies and sexuality are explored – and the way do you keep a way of thriller, whereas nonetheless present in an surroundings during which issues like permission and consent are entrance and centre?” Soderbergh explains. “The third movie simply actually dives into this in a a lot larger approach, partially as a result of for the primary time we see Mike in a relationship. In order that simply permits for a dynamic and a set of discussions that we’ve not had entry to, previous to Magic Mike’s Final Dance.” If it must be Mike’s final dance, at the least it’s set to be a half-hour-long one.
Learn extra from Empire’s Magic Mike’s Final Dance story, talking to director Steven Soderbergh, within the new Indiana Jones 5 problem of Empire – on sale 23 November, or pre-order a replica now. Magic Mike’s Final Dance is in cinemas from 10 February 2023.
