There may not be a less likely franchise in the history of movies than My Big Fat Greek Wedding. A low-budget independent romantic comedy, the film became a massive word-of-mouth hit in the spring and summer of 2002, and wound up grossing $241 million in the U.S. alone. Its writer and lead actress, Nia Vardalos, then spun the film off into a television series, My Big Fat Greek Life, which lasted for a single season on CBS and then into a direct sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, in 2016. While not quite as wildly popular as the original, the sequel still grossed way more than its budget.
Now production has begun on a third film. (Apparently this big Greek family has a lot of weddings.) Vardalos herself announced the news on her Twitter account, revealing that the movie is already shooting in — where else? — Greece.
“Thank you so much for the lovely messages,” Vardalos said from a little room above the set in Athens. She also revealed that she is the director of the project. (The first Big Fat Greek Wedding was directed by Joel Zwick; the sequel was by Kirk Jones.)
While much of the original cast of the Big Fat Greek films will return in the film, the movie will be missing Michael Constantine, who played Nia’s lovable but stubborn father in the previous two movies. Constantine died of natural causes in the summer of 2021 at the age of 94. The movie is being dedicated to his memory.
April marked the 20th anniversary of the release of the original My Big Fat Greek Wedding, so the timing works out for another movie, if only for the potential nostalgia factor. Time really flies when you are occasionally making independent movies about charming Greek families.
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