Taglines: Love is here to stay… so is her family.
Toula Portokalos is 30, Greek, and works in her family’s restaurant, Dancing Zorba’s, in Chicago. All her father Gus wants is for her to get married to a nice Greek boy. But Toula is looking for more in life. Her mother convinces Gus to let her take some computer classes at college (making him think it’s his idea).
With those classes under her belt, she then takes over her aunt’s travel agency (again making her father think it’s his idea). She meets Ian Miller, a high school English teacher, WASP, and dreamboat she had made a fool of herself over at the restaurant; they date secretly for a while before her family finds out. Her father is livid over her dating a non-Greek. He has to learn to accept Ian; Ian has to learn to accept Toula’s huge family, and Toula has to learn to accept herself.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian-American romantic comedy film directed by Joel Zwick and written by Nia Vardalos, who also stars in the film as Fotoula “Toula” Portokalos, a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” Ian Miller. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and, at the 75th Academy Awards, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding became a sleeper hit and grew steadily from its limited release. Despite never hitting the number one spot 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 according to Echo Bridge Entertainment.
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 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 release of the 2016 animated film, Sing. The film is among the most profitable of all time, with a 6150% return on a (inflation adjusted) cost of $6 million to produce.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Directed by: Joel Zwick
Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Joey Fatone, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Christina Eleusiniotis, John Kalangis, Melissa Todd, Andrea Martin, Marita Zouravlioff
Screenplay by: Nia Vardalos
Production Design by: Gregory P. Keen
Cinematography by: Jeff Jur
Film Editing by: Mia Goldman
Costume Design by: Michael Clancy
Set Decoration by: Enrico Campana
Art Direction by: Kei Ng
Makeup Department: Ann Brodie, Paul R.J. Elliot
Music by: Xandy Janko, Chris Wilson
MPAA Rating: PG for sensuality and language.
Distributed by: IFC Films
Release Date: April 19, 2002
Visits: 122
