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The My Big Fat Greek Wedding franchise, consists of American romantic comedies, including three theatrical films, and a television series. The series was created by Nia Vardalos. The two films grossed $460 million worldwide [1] [2] against a $23 million combined budget.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 romantic comedy film directed by Joel Zwick and written by Nia Vardalos. The film stars Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Gia Carides, Louis Mandylor, Andrea Martin, and Joey Fatone.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding: Directed by Joel Zwick. With Nia Vardalos, Michael Constantine, Christina Eleusiniotis, Kaylee Vieira. A young Greek woman 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 identity.
- (146K)
- Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Joel Zwick
- 2002-08-02
Released: 11th December 2023. From writer and director Nia Vardalos, the worldwide phenomenon My Big Fat Greek Wedding is back with a brand-new adventure. Join the Portokalos family as they travel to a family reunion in Greece for a heartwarming and hilarious trip full of love, twists and turns.
- Overview
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Release
- Reception
- Lawsuit
- Legacy
- References
is a 2002 romantic comedy film directed by Joel Zwick and written by Nia Vardalos. 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 identity.
An international co-production between the United States and Canada, 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 Screenplay 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 Golden Globe Awards.
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 children. 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 evening, she tells her parents 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 her and convinces him to agree to Toula's idea.
As the weeks pass, Toula gains more confidence and changes her image, switching her thick-framed glasses for contact lenses, 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 agency, that she could apply what she learns in the course to Voula's business. She agrees, and she and Maria slyly convince Gus to agree as well.
Toula's happiness working at the travel agency catches Ian's attention and he asks her to dinner. On their date, Toula confesses to Ian that her family owns Dancing Zorba's, and he suddenly 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.
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 when a family friend sees them kissing in a parking lot. Gus is furious that Ian did not ask his permission to date Toula, even though they are grown adults.
Gus forbids them from continuing to see each other because Ian is not Greek, but they continue dating anyway. He introduces Toula to single Greek men, to no avail.
•Nia Vardalos as Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos
•John Corbett as Ian Miller, an English teacher
•Lainie Kazan as Maria Portokalos, Toula's mother
•Michael Constantine as Costas "Gus" Portokalos, Toula's father
•Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula, Maria's sister
•Louis Mandylor as Nikos "Nick" Portokalos, Toula's younger brother
Development
started as a one-woman 45-minute monologue workshop, written by, and starring Vardalos, first developed in the HBO Workshop, then tested in Chicago, Toronto and Europe, later performed at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles in August 1997. moving to ACME Comedy Theatre, still as a workshop. The one-woman 45-minute monologue workshop was based on Vardalos's own family in Winnipeg in Canada and on her experience marrying a non-Greek man (actor Ian Gomez). The one-woman 45-minute monologue workshop 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. Several Hollywood executives and celebrities saw it, including actress Rita Wilson, who is herself of Greek origin; Wilson convinced her husband, actor Tom Hanks, to see it as well. Vardalos began meeting various executives about making a film version of the monologue and began writing a screenplay as well.[citation needed] 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 Serendipity) at a bar, telling a friend 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. 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 experience. I think that shows through on the screen and people recognize it."
Filming
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 are featured prominently in the film. The home used to depict Gus and Maria Portokalos's residence (as well as the home bought next door at the end of the film for Toula and Ian) is located on Glenwood Crescent just off O'Connor Drive in the Toronto suburb of East York. The real home representing the Portokalos' residence has most of the external ornamentation that was shown in the film.[citation needed] Principal photography began on May 9, 2001, and ended on June 30, 2001.
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.
Box office
became a sleeper hit and grew steadily from its limited release. Despite never hitting the number one spot for a box office weekend and being an independent film with a $5 million budget, it ultimately grossed over $368.7 million worldwide, becoming one of the top romantic films of the 21st century. It was the fifth highest-grossing film of 2002 in the United States and Canada, with USD$241,438,208, and the highest-grossing romantic comedy domestically in history. Domestically, it also held the record for the highest-grossing film never having been 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, equivalent to $Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". million in 2016. The film is among the most profitable of all time, with a 6150% return on an (also inflation-adjusted) cost of $6 million to produce.
Critical response
Template:Rotten Tomatoes prose Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Accolades
•2008: AFI's 10 Top 10: •Nominated Romantic Comedy Film
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. They charged that Gold Circle Films was engaging in so-called "Hollywood accounting" practices, as the studio claimed the film lost $20 million despite its final gross.
Television series
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 Steven Eckholdt replacing Corbett as the husband. Corbett had already signed on to the TV series Lucky. He was scheduled to appear as the best friend of his replacement's character, but the show was cancelled before he appeared. The show received poor reviews from critics noting the random character entrances and serious plot "adjustments" that did not match the film. The seven episodes from the series are available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, whose TV studio division produced the show.
1."My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
2.D'Alessandro, Anthony (February 17, 2023). "'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3' To Hit Theaters In Early Fall". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on April 24, 2023. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
3.Pfefferman, Naomi (April 11, 2003). "Lainie Kazan's 'Big Fat' Jewish Life". The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved June 10, 2022.
4.Kehr, Dave (April 19, 2002). "FILM IN REVIEW; 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 22, 2023. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
5.Manus, Willard (January 15, 1998). "My Big Fat Greek Wedding Headed for L.A.'s Globe Jan. 15 -- and Film". Playbill.
6."Theater review: 'Emily's Song' at the Hudson Backstage Theatre". Los Angeles Times. 28 January 2011. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
2002. 1 hr 35 mins. Drama, Family, Comedy. PG. Watchlist. In this romantic comedy, the proud Portokalos clan reels from the news that their thirtysomething daughter has fallen for a teacher who is...
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos, based on her one-woman show of the same name. It was directed by Joel Zwick and produced by Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson.
