‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’ To Shoot In February 2012, ‘Liberace’ To Follow In The Summer
First off, Steven Soderbergh does still plan to step away from directing with more or less the same timeline, however he’s a workhorse and seeing another interesting project cross his desk — luckily for us — he’s decided to squeeze in one more picture onto his schedule.
The director plans to team with Channing Tatum, who stars in Soderbergh’s forthcoming “Haywire,” on the actor’s passion project “Magic Mike.” The film is one Tatum has been talking about making for a while now, as it’s an autobiographical tale about his young days as a stripper. Way back in early 2010, Tatum talked about the project and at the time had another helmer in mind saying, “I’ve already got the director picked out. I’d like Nicolas Refn, who did the movie ‘Bronson,’ to do it because he’s insane for it. It needs to be a crazy film and I think it’s also possible to do a cute, romantic movie.” Obviously, in the time that has since passed, Tatum hooked up with Soderbergh and the two seem to have hit it off smashingly.
The story will find Tatum playing the titular character, who teaches a younger dancer how to hustle his wares on stage and off, and it’s inspired by the actor’s own experiences. “This was a wild and pivotal time in my life and I couldn’t be more thrilled to go down the rabbit hole with Steven,” Tatum said in a statement obtained by Deadline.
“When Channing talked to me about this, I thought it was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard for a movie,” Soderbergh said in a statement. “I said I wanted in immediately. It’s sexy, funny and shocking. We’re using ‘Saturday Night Fever‘ as our model, so hopefully we’re on the right track.”
We’ve been told that the film will be a low budget affair, not quite as lean as the production of “The Girlfriend Exprience,” but likely coming in with a $6-7 million pricetag. The script will be penned by Reid Carolin who will also produce alongside Nick Wechsler, Gregory Jacobs and Tatum. “Magic Mike” will be taken to buyers next month at Cannes for foreign pre-sales where as part of the presentation a teaser cut by Soderbergh will be shown featuring Tatum. And lensing on this will begin very soon with a September/October shoot in the works.
So how does Soderbergh’s calender look from here? Let’s break it down. “Haywire” will hit theaters in August; “Magic Mike” will gear up to shoot in September/October; “Contagion” then arrives on October 21st. And then heading into the new year, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is aiming to roll in February and it will be followed by “Liberace,” still planned as Soderbergh’s final film, which will shoot in the summer.
As usual, a tremendously busy schedule for Soderbergh, but “Magic Mike” sounds like yet another fascinating turn from the director and we’ll gladly take one more from the helmer before he steps away from the camera.
