My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is a 2016 American romantic comedy film directed by Kirk Jones and written by Nia Vardalos. The film stars Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Andrea Martin, Ian Gomez, and Elena Kampouris.
It is the sequel to the 2002 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the second installment in the My Big Fat Greek Wedding franchise. Filming began in late May 2015 in Toronto and the film was released on March 25, 2016, by Universal Pictures, receiving negative reviews from critics. The film grossed $90.6 million worldwide against a $18 million budget. A third film, entitled My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, was released on September 8, 2023.
Plot
Toula Portokalos-Miller's life is in shambles; both her travel agency and the family dry cleaners have closed due to the recession. The only family business still open is the restaurant that her father, Gus, still runs. Her husband, Ian, is the principal at their teenage daughter Paris' high school.Paris, who is applying to college, feels smothered by her close-knit clan, who constantly interfere in her life. Desperate for independence and privacy, she applies to schools across the country. Ian and Toula's marriage has become strained due to Toula's obsessive need to be involved in Paris' life and to "fix" whatever goes wrong in her family.
Meanwhile, Gus has convinced himself that he is directly descended from Alexander the Great and wants to write to an online ancestry site for confirmation. While sorting through his records, he discovers that his and Maria's marriage certificate was never signed by the priest, technically invalidating their union. His current priest isn't allowed to sign it but agrees to perform a new ceremony.
Gus insists that he and Maria must marry again after fifty years together, but she wants him to propose properly. When he refuses, an infuriated Maria refuses to go through with the ceremony. Meanwhile, when Toula and Ian are on a date night to rekindle their romance, their family catches them making out in their car outside their house.
When Gus has to go to the hospital, Maria initially refuses to go, saying she is not his wife. Gus pleads for her to marry him again. This time, she accepts.
Wanting the wedding she never had, Maria hires a wedding planner, who later quits after the rowdy family's choices become too outlandish. The whole family, including Ian's parents, Rodney and Harriet, and Angelo's business partner, Patrick, pitch in to make the wedding happen. Nick urges Angelo to tell his parents, Voula and Taki, that Patrick is also Angelo's romantic partner. Gus's estranged brother, Panos, arrives from Greece as a surprise.
Paris has been accepted to Northwestern University in Chicago and NYU in NYC. She chooses Northwestern to please her mother, but Paris' great-grandmother convinces her she should go to New York.
Paris asks Bennett, a boy she has a crush on, to the prom. Paris is initially embarrassed about her background, but he turns out to also be Greek with an equally crazy family. Prom is the same night as the wedding, so Toula tells her she can go to the prom if she attends the reception later.
En route to the church, Gus, Panos, and Taki arrive drunk after many shots of ouzo. Maria storms off to the vestry after seeing Gus acting foolishly, feeling he is not taking the wedding seriously. Panos tells Maria that Gus had confided to him his love for her, so the ceremony continues. Watching as Gus and Maria renew their marriage ceremony, Ian and Toula privately renew theirs. At the prom, Paris and Bennett share their first kiss while slow-dancing.
At the wedding reception, Gus reads a letter from the ancestry site verifying that he is a descendant of Alexander the Great. Ian, however, realizes that Toula forged the letter to make her father happy. The movie ends with the entire family dropping Paris off at her college dorm in New York.
Cast
- Nia Vardalos as Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos-Miller
- John Corbett as Ian Miller, Toula's husband
- Elena Kampouris as Paris Miller, Toula and Ian's 17-year-old daughter
- Lainie Kazan as Maria Portokalos, Toula's mother
- Michael Constantine as Kostas "Gus" Portokalos, Toula's father
- Andrea Martin as Theia Voula, Toula's aunt
- Louis Mandylor as Nick Portokalos, Toula's brother
- Gia Carides as Cousin Nikki, Voula's daughter
- Gerry Mendicino as Uncle Taki, Voula's husband, and Angelo and Nikki's father.
- Joey Fatone as Cousin Angelo, Voula's son
- Bess Meisler as Mana-Yiayia, Toula's grandmother
- Stavroula Logothettis as Athena Portokalos, Toula's sister
- Ian Gomez as Mike, Ian's best friend
- Mark Margolis as Panos Portokalos, Kostas's brother
- John Stamos as George, a Greek-American news anchor
- Rita Wilson as Anna, George's wife.
- Alex Wolff as Bennett, Paris's love interest
- Bruce Gray as Rodney Miller, Ian's father
- Fiona Reid as Harriet Miller, Ian's mother
- Jayne Eastwood as Mrs. White, the Portokalos' neighbor
- Rob Riggle as Northwestern Rep
Production
In a 2009 interview for her film My Life in Ruins, asked about a possible sequel to the 2002 hit romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos stated that she had an idea for a sequel and had started writing it, hinting that, like Ruins, the film would be set in Greece.Asked about a sequel again in a November 2012 interview, she stated:
On May 27, 2014, various news and media outlets reported that a sequel was in the works. Vardalos later confirmed this via Twitter, and wrote the script for the film. Universal Pictures acquired the US distribution rights to the film on November 11, 2014, and Kirk Jones was set to direct, based on the script by Vardalos, who also starred.
Filming
Principal photography began on May 10, 2015, in Toronto, and ended on June 28.Release
On May 21, 2015, Universal set the film for a March 25, 2016, release.On November 11, 2015, the first trailer was released during an airing of NBC's The Today Show.