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The wedding march continues
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the first indie film to reach the $200 million mark
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Arthur J Pais
As My Big Fat Greek Wedding danced past the $200 million benchmark Tuesday night, it became the first independently produced film to reach the mark. The movie does not feature well-known actors or director.
Among the top 10 players in North America, it is turning into a smash hit abroad too. It has grossed 20 million gross in England and $9 million in Australia where it is expected to earn at least $6 million more.
Industry observers expect it to grab at least $30 million in North America, most of it expected during the Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends.
Just the way Titanic, with its $630 million North American gross remains the film to be beaten, Greek Wedding remains the independently made film to be overtaken. The next highest grossing indie film Blair Witch Project, minted about $140 million in America in 1999.
Made for $3.5-$5 million, Greek Wedding, the romantic comedy was shunned by major distributors of independent movies such as Miramax, Sony Classics and Universal Focus. A tiny company, International Film Channel, then picked it.
The movie created such a great word of mouth with each passing week that IFC kept on adding screens. Even then, the theatre count never exceeded 2,000, and though the film came almost close to claiming the No 1 position in the country in October, it remained No. 2 for several weeks. Now in its 31st week of release, it was the sixth highest grossing movie in the country, with a still strong $4.7 million. It is showing in 1812 theatres. IFC has plans to add more screens in November last week to capitalise on the Thanksgiving
holidays. Similar strategy is planned for the Christmas week, too.
The film, which is co-produced by Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson (who comes from a Greek American family) tells the story of 30-year-old Greek American woman, Toula, who suddenly falls in love with a non-Greek man. Toula hopes that if the man gets baptised in a Greek Orthodox church and agrees for a big fat Greek wedding, her tradition-minded family will accept him. Her plans lead to plenty of confusion and angst but nothing that could not be laughed away.
While the reviews were decidedly mixed, the movie connected to the audiences in an unprecedented way. People found the film genuinely amusing and uplifting.
'Everyone in this movie looks like they could be a real person,' wrote Roger Ebert in Chicago Sun-Times. 'Five minutes into the film, I relaxed, knowing it was set in the real world, and not in the Hollywood alternative universe where Julia Roberts can't get a date.'
Similar sentiments were echoed in the Washington Post.com review.
Desson Howe praised the movie's 'tremendously sweet spirit.' He adds, 'There is so much goodwill here, you are charmed as much as tickled into laughing,' he wrote.
Written by Nia Vardalos, who also plays Toula, the movie was directed by a relative newcomer Joel Zwick who has been directing video films. A low-budget comedy Second Sight which he directed 12 years ago, had hardly made
a ripple.
Vardalos had developed the project as a one-woman stage show in Los Angeles several years ago. The show drew the attention of Rita Wilson who then got her husband interested.
Hanks recently received strong praise for his performance as a gangster in Road To
Perdition. But the movie's $105 million gross, which is quite decent, has been dwarfed hugely by Greek Wedding which came from nowhere and went on to write movie history in America.
Vardalos and Zwick each received less than $1 million for the movie but their paycheck for their next movie project could be five times more.