EXCLUSIVE: This is going to gobsmack almost everyone in Hollywood. Not only did Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh just choose 21-year-old newcomer Alex Pettyfer for this juicy role in Magic Mike. But also, as Deadline has previously reported, the film has such an interesting storyline because the plot revolves around Channing Tatum’s real-life stripper sojourn. Now Pettyfer will play a young Tatum baring it all while Channing plays his older mentor. Pettyfer recently starred in I Am Number Four and Beastly, and will appear this fall opposite Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried for New Regency in a film that was called Now, and just changed its name today to In Time.

Soderbergh’s Magic Mike is the story of a friendship set in the world of male strippers. Tatum plays the title character, who schools a young dancer (Pettyfer) in how to hustle on and off the stage. It’s a wild summer of dancing, partying, and women. The inspiration was Channing’s own experiences as a stripper when he was 19. With Tatum, Nick Wechsler is producing with Gregory Jacobs and Reid Carolin who is writing the script. Soderbergh has called the film “sexy, funny and shocking” using Saturday Night Fever as a model.

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