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In April 2002, a small comedy about a Greek-American woman and her big, overbearing family opened in 108 theaters. It made just $597,000 that first weekend and ranked 20th (per Box Office Mojo).
Nobody expected much, and yet My Big Fat Greek Wedding went on to become one of the most profitable films ever made, even though it never once finished first at the weekend box office.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding Box Office
Well, the numbers are hard to believe. The film cost $5 million to make and brought in $368.7 million worldwide. It earned more than $241 million in US theaters, which makes it the highest-grossing romantic comedy ever. It is also the highest-grossing film since at least 1982 that never hit No. 1 on any weekend. The Hollywood Reporter noted that it stayed in theaters for a full year.
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The story started on a stage. Nia Vardalos wrote and starred in a 45-minute one-woman show that she developed in the HBO Workshop and later performed in Los Angeles. Actress Rita Wilson saw it and talked her husband, Tom Hanks, into producing it. They teamed up with Playtone and IFC Films and made the movie for $5 million, with no idea they had a huge hit on their hands.
The Lasting Success of the Greek Wedding Franchise
The Big studio power had little to do with its rise. The marketing was grassroots. Wilson remembered that the team reached out to Greek Orthodox churches and asked them to hand out flyers and mention the film in their bulletins. “The Greeks showed up for us,” she told USA Today in 2023. But the appeal went well beyond the Greek community. As Wilson put it, viewers from all backgrounds saw their own relatives in the Portokalos family.
The film grew slowly instead of opening big. Wilson said the studio kept adding theaters as money came in, and she called it a word-of-mouth success. The film was never No. 1, she said, but it was always No. 2 during those months. A turning point came when Vardalos appeared on Oprah, and the team realized the film had become a real moment.
Critics and awards voters noticed too. Vardalos earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Audiences overseas loved it as well, adding about $127 million to the worldwide total.
The success also led to more. A short-lived sitcom, My Big Fat Greek Life, aired in 2003. Then a sequel came out in 2016, and a third film hit theaters on September 8, 2023. Now, more than twenty years later, people who follow the box office are still amazed by how long the film lasted.
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