NEW YORK (AP) — Channing Tatum is bringing the stage spinoff of his wildly successful “Magic Mike” film franchise to New York City, promising to “turn up the gas” on a show that already generates plenty of heat.
“Magic Mike Live” — which offers plenty of chiseled abs and sex positivity — will open its specially designed, 425-seat immersive experience Oct. 8 at the onetime Copacabana nightclub on the corner of 47th Street and 8th Avenue.
“We’re going to turn the gas up a little bit and make it a little hotter, just pour some gasoline on it. It’s New York. So you’ve got to throw everything at it,” Tatum tells The Associated Press.
“Magic Like Live” flips the traditional, cheesy male revue on its head, putting the women in the audience first at a time when toxic masculinity is under fire. The show features 13 ripped male dancers and a female emcee, combining songs, aerial acrobatics, comedy, plenty of drink service and audience participation, only if wanted.
“It’s kind of like a dance spectacular that has a sexy twist, and sexy for us is a lot of things. Sexy is funny. Sexy is athletic. Sexy is smart. So we try to approach the dance with all of those things in mind,” says Alison Faulk, co-director and choreographer.
“There’s very few spaces that are made with women in mind,” she adds. “This is made with the woman in mind and making her whole night happy and easier and fun, just to like to take a load off. There’s few places like that.”
Some of the songs will include Ginuwine’s “Pony,” which is featured in the films, 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop,” Gallant's “Open Up,” James Brown's “Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine” and Ro James' “Permission,” as well as original music.
The creators say the new venue is a hybrid between a really beautiful nightclub and a theatrical space, with multiple bars and lounges and seating that ranges from couches to traditional theatrical seats, to barstools, cabaret tables and banquets.
“What we really try to do is to create an evening of surprise and delight that gives you a bit of what you expect and then a whole bunch of things you never thought you’d ever get,” says Vincent Marini, creative director and executive producer. “What we did for the male revue is very similar to what Cirque du Soleil did to circus.”
Tatum, who spent time in a Chippendales-like revue as a young dancer before becoming a movie star, conceived of the nightclub-style shows but warns visitors not to expect a live version of the “Magic Mike” movies.
“One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to make this show was to kill that old version of male entertaining, because I’ve worked in that version and it’s misogynistic and degrading to women,” he says.
“It’s just gross a little bit. I ain’t gonna lie. Like, I did it for like about 10 months and I was like, ‘Wow, this is crazy. This is nuts,’” he adds. “Most of the people that end up loving our show, I think, the most are the people that kind of hate that type of thing the most.”
The success of the films first spawned a Las Vegas stage show in 2017 that now has outposts in London and Berlin and is touring Australia. The version that lands in New York will be tweaked to reflect the city and creators say they've fine-tuned the story.
Tatum says the creators have learned that audiences in different cities act differently — London's were more staid than Vegas, for instance — and that whoever is the emcee can really change the experience by setting the tone.
“This New York production is the culmination of 10 years of work and thought and watching millions of people, men and women go to this show,” says Marini. “We want to come to New York with the very best version of this that we’ve ever done.”
FILE - Channing Tatum appears at the special screening of "Roofman" in New York on Sept. 8, 2025. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Channing Tatum appears at the premiere of "Roofman" in Los Angeles on Sept. 29, 2025. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
DORAL, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States and Latin American countries are banding together to combat violent cartels as his administration looks to demonstrate it remains committed to sharpening U.S. foreign policy focus on the Western Hemisphere even while dealing with five-alarm crises around the globe.
Trump encouraged regional leaders gathered at his Miami-area golf club to take military action against drug trafficking cartels and transnational gangs that he says pose an “unacceptable threat” to the hemisphere's national security.
“The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries," Trump said. “We have to use our military. You have to use your military.” Citing the U.S.-led coalition that confronted the Islamic State group in the Middle East, the Republican president said that ”we must now do the same thing to eradicate the cartels at home.”
The gathering, which the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit, came just two months after Trump ordered an audacious U.S. military operation to capture Venezuela's then-president, Nicolás Maduro, and whisk him and his wife to the United States to face drug conspiracy charges.
Looming even larger is Trump's decision to launch a war on Iran with Israel one week ago, a conflict that has left hundreds dead, convulsed global markets and unsettled the broader Middle East.
Trump's time with the Latin American leaders was limited: Afterward, he set out for Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, to be on hand for the dignified transfer of the six U.S. troops killed in a drone strike on a command center in Kuwait, one day after the U.S. and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran.
Trump called the American deaths a “very sad situation” and praised the fallen troops as “great heroes.”
With the summit, Trump aimed to turn attention to the Western Hemisphere, at least for a moment. He has pledged to reassert U.S. dominance in the region and push back on what he sees as years of Chinese economic encroachment in America's backyard.
Trump also said the U.S. will turn its attention to Cuba after the war with Iran and suggested his administration would cut a deal with Havana, underscoring Washington's increasingly aggressive stance against the island's communist leadership. "Great change will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said, adding that “they’re very much at the end of the line.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Saturday described the summit as “small, reactionary, and neocolonial.” He wrote in a social media post that the U.S. has committed right-wing governments from the region “to accept the lethal use of US military force to resolve internal problems and maintain order and tranquility in their countries.”
The leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago joined the Republican president at Trump National Doral Miami, a golf resort where he is also set to host the Group of 20 summit later this year.
The idea for a summit of like-minded conservatives from across the hemisphere emerged from the ashes of what was to be the 10th edition of the Summit of the Americas, which was scrapped during the U.S. military buildup off the coast of Venezuela last year.
Host Dominican Republic, pressured by the White House, had barred Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from attending the regional gathering. But after leftist leaders in Colombia and Mexico threatened to pull out in protest — and with no commitment from Trump to attend — the Dominican Republic's president, Luis Abinader, decided at the last minute to postpone the event, citing “deep differences” in the region.
The Shield of the Americas moniker was meant to speak to Trump’s vision for an “America First” foreign policy toward the region that leverages U.S. military and intelligence assets unseen across the area since the end of the Cold War.
To that end, Ecuador and the United States conducted military operations this week against organized crime groups in the South American country. Ecuadorian and U.S. security forces attacked a refuge belonging to the Colombian illegal armed group Comandos de la Frontera in the Ecuadorian Amazon on Friday, authorities reported.
This joint fight against drug traffickers "is only the beginning,” said Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa.
Notably missing at the summit were the region’s two dominant powers — Brazil and Mexico — as well as Colombia, long the linchpin of U.S. anti-narcotics strategy in the region.
Trump grumbled that Mexico is the "epicenter of cartel violence" with drug kingpins “orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere.”
“The cartels are running Mexico,' Trump said. ”We can’t have that. Too close to us. Too close to you."
Trump made no mention of his administration's insistence that countering Chinese influence in the hemisphere is a top priority for his second term.
His national security strategy promotes the “Trump Corollary” to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which had sought to ban European incursions in the Americas, by targeting Chinese infrastructure projects, military cooperation and investment in the region’s resource industries.
The first demonstration of the more muscular approach was Trump’s strong-arming of Panama to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and review long-term port contracts held by a Hong Kong-based company amid U.S. threats to retake the Panama Canal.
More recently, the U.S. capture of Maduro and Trump’s pledge to “run” Venezuela threatens to disrupt oil shipments to China — the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude before the raid — and bring into Washington’s orbit one of Beijing’s closest allies in the region. Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing later this month to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
For many countries, China’s trade-focused diplomacy fills a critical financial void in a region with major development challenges ranging from poverty reduction to infrastructure bottlenecks. In contrast, Trump has been slashing foreign assistance to the region while rewarding countries lined up behind his crackdown on immigration — a policy widely unpopular across the hemisphere.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the leaders for a working lunch after Trump left for the event in Delaware. The lunch gave Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired as homeland security secretary on Thursday, the chance to make her debut in her new role as a special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas.”
“We want our hemisphere to be safer, to be more sovereign, and to be more prosperous,” Noem told the leaders.
Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Gabriela Molina in Quito, Ecuador, and Dánica Coto in San Jose, Costa Rica contributed.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is seen before the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Donald Trump signs a proclamation committing to countering cartel criminal activity at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Donald Trump arrives at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Donald Trump speaks at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Donald Trump speaks at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Donald Trump speaks at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - This image from video shows the Trump National Doral in Doral, Fla., June 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Sanz, File)
President Donald Trump listens during a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump speaks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
