At the start of this month, word arrived that made us think Steven Soderbergh might not quite be so ready to start receiving the director’s equivalent of Saga magazine, since he was shoving his retirement back by one extra film to make Magic Mike.And now he has a star for the stripping pic in Alex Pettyfer.
Magic Mike will be based on the real-life experiences of Channing Tatum, who worked as a stripper in his late teens and clearly made an impression on Soderbergh when they worked together recently on action thriller Haywire. Together, the pair has plotted out the tale of a young man who decides that stripping is the career for him and gets some advice from an older performer.
Since they’re clearly not planning to spend the money on Avatar-style technology to de-age Tatum back to his 19-year-old self, Pettyfer will be playing the youngster, while Tatum is the title character, a veteran Chippendale type who can teach him everything he needs to know both on and off-stage. Reid Carolin is cranking out a script for the film, which Soderbergh has likened to a Saturday Night Feve****r-style story.
Pettyfer’s star has risen recently, thanks to starring roles in Beastly and I Am Number Four. He’ll next be seen as an artful dodger-style villain in Andrew Niccol’s latest sci-fi drama, which has gone through a variety of names. Once known as I’m.mortal, it switched to Now, but Deadline reports that it changed this week to In Time. We’ll let you know if it changes again before it hits our screens.