'Magic Mike XXL': EW preview

STARRING Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Jada Pinkett Smith

DIRECTED BY Gregory Jacobs

RATED R

RELEASE DATE July 1

What happens in the sequel to 2012’s male-stripper hit? “No plot,” teases Channing Tatum. “Just a bunch of naked dudes sitting around doing dude stuff. We read all the message boards, and people were like, ‘Less story. Less plot. Just dudes’ things.’ And we listened to that.”

There’s more to XXL than just naked dudes—although there is a lot of that, too. The film picks up three years later, with Mike (Tatum) and his dancing buddies (Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello, among others) taking a road trip to a—yes!—stripper convention in Myrtle Beach, S.C. On their way, they run into newcomers to the Mike universe, including Jada Pinkett Smith as a strip-club owner and NFLer–turned–Kelly Ripa cohost Michael Strahan as one of her gyrating employees. Steven Soderbergh, who directed the first Mike movie (it grossed $114 million in the U.S.), chose to hand over the reins to his longtime assistant director, Gregory Jacobs, but stayed on as XXL’s cinematographer and producer. With Jacobs’ approval, of course. “Chan and Steven turned to me and were like, ‘What do you think?’ ” says Jacobs. “I guess keeping it in the family made the most sense.”

While Magic Mike XXL doesn’t boast giant dinos or flying superheroes, Tatum teases that there’s plenty of spectacle. “Basically, we all were taking penis-enlargement pills since the last one, so we weren’t worried about what temperature the room was when we came out to do our dances,” he jokes. (We think.) “That’s what XXL means.” Who says there’s no truth in advertising?