The next movie in the Magic Mike film franchise will be headed to theaters instead of HBO Max, supporting Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav‘s stance that films should be released theatrically over streaming.
The film, entitled Magic Mike’s Last Dance, will hit theaters Feb. 10, 2023, according to Deadline. The news outlet reports the Super Bowl weekend theatrical release will be followed by a premiere video on demand period before it’s available on HBO Max.
Channing Tatum, who plays Mike Lane, director Steven Soderbergh and writer Reid Carolin are all returning to the franchise.
The first two movies’ combined global box office receipts were about $300 million, and in 2017, the franchise gave rise to the popular stage production Magic Mike Live. It began in Las Vegas and swiftly spread abroad, arriving in London, Berlin, and Australia.
The live shows also inspired the upcoming HBO Max reality competition series Finding Magic Mike.
“Is there anybody on screen more charismatic and appealing than Magic Mike?” said Toby Emmerich, Chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, in a statement at the time of Magic Mike’s Last Dance announcement. “We’re thrilled to be back in business with Channing, Steven and their creative team to bring back Magic Mike’s wonderful combination of dance, drama, romance and humor.”
Tatum, for his part, was reluctant to do a third movie, telling IndieWire, it was Sodenbergh and Carolin who finally convinced him.
“In my opinion, we had chewed up all the meat on the bone, story-wise,” he said. They’re essentially movies about guys made for women. We didn’t plan on making a second one.”
“Then all of our ancillary characters were so good and fun that we felt like, ‘Let’s do another movie and give those characters more real estate that we didn’t have before.’ Once we did that, we felt like there was no other story,” he continued.
However, after the Magic Mike Live show in Berlin, “Reid and Soderbergh were talking and they said, ‘There’s another movie here. We should look at it.’”