Ladies of Tampa (and Earth)! Magic Mike 2 is coming!

But only if Channing Tatum & Co can figure out who will direct.

The 33 year-old heartthrob told The Hollywood Reporter that Magic Mike director Steven Soderbergh doesn’t want to do a sequel, and people are afraid to fill his shoes. “We’re developing Magic Mike 2, but he really wants to be done directing movies.”

“We’ll see,” he continued. “I wish people would lobby him to finish what he started: ‘Come on, man! Stop being stubborn and come back.’ I’ve said that to him, but he is a very fixed-in-his-ways guy, and if he says it, it is hard to change.”

Channing and his producing partner Reid Carolin (who wrote the first movie) may direct the sequel, together, or turn to Greg Jacobs, who worked as a producer on the first Magic Mike and has been “Steven’s right hand man for almost 25 movies.”

“Right now, we’re just trying to clean up the story, and then we’ll make a decision,” Channing continued. “But it is hard for me and Reid to direct after one of the greatest directors of our time. Steven has argued [for us to do so]. He has said he would shoot it; he would DP it. And there’s another thing: Is that good? Because he is such an opinionated and talented man, if he wants to do a five-minute tracking shot through a forest, you don’t want to doubt him. It would be like having sex with your girlfriend while her porn-star ex-boyfriend is in the room watching you.”

I hope they figure out the director situation, because the planned story sounds awesome: “It will be a road-trip movie,” Channing dished. “It will essentially be the movie that everyone thought the first one was going to be: crazy and fun and less slice-of-life and less drama. The first one, we had to make not so cheesy and campy; this one we are going to swing for the fences.”

Any suggestions for a Magic Mike 2 director? Maybe Channing & Reid should do it together. Then again, Michael Bay has demonstrated skill with toned male abs with Pain & Gain…