INYIM Media Back To The Future: ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ Whose Second Sequel Is Out Sept. 8!

INYIM Media Back To The Future: ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ Whose Second Sequel Is Out Sept. 8!

"As Hollywood fairy tales go, few are as enchanting as that of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, whose second sequel — My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 — opens Sept. 8.

It all began in the summer of 1997, with a one-woman show written and performed by Winnipeg-born Nia Vardalos (a former member of Chicago’s Second City), staged in the cramped Hudson Backstage Theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Rita Wilson, who’d recently launched Playtone Productions with husband Tom Hanks, noticed a tiny ad for the play in the Los Angeles Times. (The ad was paid for by Vardalos with her final $750.) The title made Wilson chuckle, as did the subject matter — her mother is Greek and her Bulgarian father was born in Greece — so she bought tickets.

“I could not stop laughing,” recalls Wilson. “My mom, my sister, my nieces, we were all hysterical because we were like, ‘This is exactly our life.’ ”

Hanks saw the play the following week and concurred his wife had stumbled onto something special. And Vardalos was ready for her close-up, having already adapted the show into a screenplay.

“The one-woman show was very, very close to what the screenplay was. And the screenplay that we filmed was pretty much the screenplay that I was handed,” says Wilson.

Joel Zwick was enlisted to direct (incidentally, he directed the episode of Bosom Buddies on which Wilson and Hanks first met back in the ’80s), but getting production off the ground proved a challenge.

“None of the studios would finance us,” Wilson continues. “They wanted to replace Nia. They were like, ‘We need somebody with a name.’ And I kept thinking, ‘But she’s the writer. This is her story. The story’s enough.’ ”

In the end, Playtone itself financed the $5 million film and strategized an incremental expansion that built on positive word-of-mouth.

“We just kept adding theaters,” says Wilson. “It’s a Cinderella story in every single way.”

And how: The 2002 film went on to earn $242 million domestically ($411 million today), making it the highest-grossing rom-com of all time.

This story first appeared in the Sept. 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe." - Hollywoodreporter.com