My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 romantic comedy film directed by Joel Zwick and writt by Nia Vardalos. An international co-production betwe the United States and Canada, the film stars Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Gia Carides, Louis Mandylor, Andrea Martin, and Joey Fatone. It follows a young Greek-American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage and cultural idtity.
The film premiered at the American Film Market on February 22, 2002, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 19, 2002, by IFC Films. It received positive reviews from critics and was a box office success, grossing $368.7 million worldwide against its $5 million budget. It was nominated for Best Original Screplay at the 75th Academy Awards and for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Vardalos at the 60th Gold Globe Awards.
The film spawned a franchise, which inspired the 2003 sitcom My Big Fat Greek Life and the 2016 sequel My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. A third film, titled My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, is scheduled to be released in theaters on September 8, 2023.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Thirty-year-old Fotoula Toula Portokalos is a member of a large, loud, intrusive Greek family that only wants her to get married and have childr. Frumpy and meek, she works in her family's Chicago restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, but longs to do something more with her life. While working one day, a school teacher named Ian Miller comes into the restaurant, and Toula develops a crush on him. That eving, Toula tells her parts that she wants to go to college to learn about computers, but her father, Gus, becomes emotional, claiming Toula wants to leave him. Her mother, Maria, comforts Toula and convinces Gus to agree to Toula's idea.
As the weeks pass, Toula gains more confidce and changes her image, switching her thick-framed glasses for contact lses, styling her hair, and wearing makeup and brighter clothes that show off her figure. She sees a notice for a course on computers and tourism and tells her Aunt Voula, who owns a travel agcy, that she could apply what she learns in the course to Voula's business. Voula agrees, and she and Maria slyly convince Gus to agree as well.
Toula's happiness working at the travel agcy catches Ian's atttion and he asks her to dinner. On their date, Toula confesses to Ian that her family owns Dancing Zorba's, and Ian suddly recognizes her; contrary to Toula's fear that he would lose interest in her, Ian reaffirms his fondness for her. They continue dating and fall in love.
Trailer Released For My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Knowing her family would not approve of her dating a non-Greek, Toula lies that she is taking a pottery class to see Ian. However, Toula's lie is exposed wh a family frid sees Toula and Ian kissing in a parking lot. Gus is furious that Ian did not ask his permission to date Toula, ev though they are grown adults. Gus refuses to let them continue seeing each other because Ian is not Greek, but Toula and Ian continue dating anyway. Gus introduces Toula to single frids of his own, to no avail.
Ian proposes marriage and Toula accepts. Maria tells Gus that he must accept their marriage, but Gus remains upset because Ian is not a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. To get the family to accept him, Ian agrees to be baptized into the church. The Portokalos family does finally accept him but constantly inserts themselves into the wedding planning, designing ugly bridesmaid's dresses and misspelling Ian's mother's name on their wedding invitations. Ian's quiet, conservative parts meet the tire family during a loud and extravagant Greek family dinner and are overwhelmed by the experice, frustrating Gus. Toula worries about whether her father has accepted Ian.
At the wedding reception, Gus gives a heartfelt speech focusing on how the differces in the newlyweds' backgrounds do not matter. He and Maria th surprise Toula and Ian with a house as a wedding gift. As the two families dance together, Toula narrates that while her family is indeed loud, odd, and somewhat dramatic, she knows they love her and will always be there for her. Six years later, Toula and Ian leave their house to walk their daughter to Greek school. The house is th revealed to be right next door to Gus and Maria's house.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 [blu Ray] [2016]
My Big Fat Greek Wedding started as a one-woman play writt by and starring Vardalos, performed for six weeks at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles in the summer of 1997.
The play was based on Vardalos's own family in Winnipeg in Canada and on her experice marrying a non-Greek man (actor Ian Gomez).
The play was popular and was sold out for much of its run, in part due to Vardalos's marketing it across Greek Orthodox churches in the area.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3: Watch The Trailer Here
Vardalos began meeting various executives about making a film version of the play and began writing a screplay as well. However, the meetings proved fruitless because the executives insisted on making changes that they felt would make the film more marketable, to which Vardalos objected. These included changing the plot, getting a known actress in the lead role (Marisa Tomei was one name mtioned),
Two months after the play's initial run ded, Hanks's production company, Playtone, contacted Vardalos about producing a film based on her vision for it; they also agreed to remount the play in early 1998, this time at LA's Globe Theatre.
Hanks later said that casting Vardalos in the lead role brings a huge amount of integrity to the piece because it's Nia's version of her own life and her own experice. I think that shows through on the scre and people recognize it.
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In 2000, while in Toronto doing pre-production for the film, Vardalos and Playtone producer Gary Goetzman overheard actor John Corbett (who was in town shooting the film Serdipity) at a bar, telling a frid of his about having read the script for My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and being upset that he couldn't make the auditions. Vardalos and Goetzman approached Corbett and offered him the part of Ian Miller on the spot, which he accepted.
Despite being based on life in the Greek community of Winnipeg, the film was set in Chicago and shot in both Toronto and Chicago. Toronto Metropolitan University and the Greektown neighborhood feature promintly in the film. The home used to depict Gus and Maria Portokalos's residce (as well as the home bought next door at the d of the film for Toula and Ian) is located on Glwood Cresct just off O'Connor Drive in the Toronto suburb of East York. The real home represting the Portokalos' residce has most of the external ornamtation that was shown in the film.
After a February 2002 premiere, it was initially released in the United States via a limited release on April 19, 2002 before receiving a wider release worldwide over the summer, including a wide release in the United States on August 2.
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding became a sleeper hit and grew steadily from its limited release. Despite never hitting the number one spot for a box office weekd and being an indepdt film with a $5 million budget, it ultimately grossed over $368.7 million worldwide, becoming one of the top romantic films of the 21st ctury.
Domestically, it also held the record for the highest-grossing film never having be number one on the weekly North American box office charts
Until the 2016 release of the animated film Sing. However, adjusted for inflation, the gross of My Big Fat Greek Wedding was still higher, equivalt to $322 million in 2016. The film is among the most profitable of all time, with a 6150% return on an(inflation-adjusted) cost of $6 million to produce.
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On the review aggregator website Rott Tomatoes, 76% of 130 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's conssus reads: Though it sometimes feels like a television sitcom, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is good-hearted, lovable, and delightfully ecctric, with a sharp script and lead performance from Nia Vardalos.
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating gerally favorable reviews.
In 2012, a 10th anniversary edition of the film was released via DVD and Blu-ray by HBO. The edition contains a digital copy of the film and features deleted sces as well as a 30-minute retrospective with Vardalos and Corbett.
The Sequel To 'my Big Fat Greek Wedding' Is Coming
The cast (with the exception of Vardalos, who had a separate deal), as well as Hanks' production company, Playtone, later sued the studio for their part of the profits, charging that Gold Circle Films was gaging in so-called Hollywood accounting practices.
The film inspired the brief 2003 TV series My Big Fat Greek Life, with most of the major characters played by the same actors, with the exception of Stev Eckholdt replacing Corbett as
