Question for old-timers: What the Hell was with My Big Fat Greek Wedding's box office run?

[johnboy3434]

MBFGW made $5.7 million on its wide opening weekend. It then proceeded to spend 26 weeks in wide release, ultimately grossing $241 million. That's a multiplier of 42.4x. This movie has the best legs of any wide-release film since the founding of BOM, and by a country mile at that (second place goes to Shakespeare in Love, with 29x).

 

So... what happened? What made this movie so special? What chord did it strike with the audience that kept them coming week after week for half a year? I was too busy being a little whippersnapper, so can some of the old fogies here tell me what it was like?

Edited April 23, 2016 by johnboy3434

[filmlover]

Hello I was 21/22 when My Big Fat Greek Wedding opened and and I'm an old foggie that can tell you why it did so well lol.

 

It was a simply one moment in time freak occurrence that a movie caught on with everyone. Especially when the nation was seeking lighthearted laughs as it pulled itself back up from 9/11.

[Plain Old Tele]

It had a long, slow rollout and really stuck a chord with older audiences and almost anyone from an immigrant family. Almost everyone could relate to it and it was the sort of movie you could take your parents or grandparents to.

[filmlover]

7 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

It had a long, slow rollout and really stuck a chord with older audiences and almost anyone from an immigrant family. Almost everyone could relate to it and it was the sort of movie you could take your parents or grandparents to.

Truth. I ended up seeing it over 4th of July weekend right before it really began to take off on the recommendation of a friend who said he hadn't laughed that hard in forever and saw it with an audience who almost drowned it the dialogue from laughter on several occasions. That's when you know a film will catch on.

[Biph Shmata]

52 minutes ago, johnboy3434 said:

MBFGW made $5.7 million on its wide opening weekend. It then proceeded to spend 26 weeks in wide release, ultimately grossing $241 million. That's a multiplier of 42.4x. This movie has the best legs of any wide-release film since the founding of BOM, and by a country mile at that (second place goes to Shakespeare in Love, with 29x).

 

So... what happened? What made this movie so special? What chord did it strike with the audience that kept them coming week after week for half a year? I was too busy being a little whippersnapper, so can some of the old fogies here tell me what it was like?

I can think of one other low budget film that had a similar insanely long run and legs, Dirty Dancing. It seems both films struck a chord with post teenage women. 

[filmlover]

One of the few bright spots of the sequel is that it brings everyone who had a speaking part from the original back.

[baumer]

Basically what Tele said.

 

I'll expand a bit more.  I was born in Canada.  My ex wife was born in Portugal.  This is the scenario for a lot of married couples in North America.  You have one person born in the country that they dwell in and their spouse is European or just someone not American/Canadian.  The issues this film touched on were issues that any one of us could relate to.  Cultural differences were written in a humourous way that many of us hadn't seen before.  And this got a lot fo people to the theater, that otherwise don't go or go sparingly.  I saw the film three times.  The first time, as is customary with me, was alone.  I laughed myself silly.  I told my wife about it and then the next time we saw it together and she, being less prone to laugh at things, also laughed in all the right spots.  This got the two of us to take her parents....two older Portuguese people who have been in Canada for about 50 years but still didn't speak the language very well, and what I witnessed in the theater was not only shocking but it was joyous.  They loved it.  They laughed and laughed and laughed and on the way home from the theater, they spoke to their daughter in Portuguese and went over all the funny bits in the movie.

 

Basically it touched on things that so many could relate to and this gave it the insane WOM that it benefited from.

[baumer]

2 hours ago, BKB IS CAPTAIN AMERICA said:

 

The Question is: Will the sequel last as long as the 1st movie did at the box office in terms of legs or is this just a different Era all together with more movies being pushed out quicker for Blu-Ray/DVD???

 

Legs are dead in today's market.  You'll never have a run like that again.  2002 was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before internet piracy.

[IronJimbo]

Old timer here, I agree with what Tele said.

[baumer]

7 hours ago, Biph Shmata said:

I can think of one other low budget film that had a similar insanely long run and legs, Dirty Dancing. It seems both films struck a chord with post teenage women. 

 

He said since the founding of boxofficemojo.com....basically since 1998

[Lordmandeep]

It was not a good movie but it it struck a chorde with audiences no doubt 

[baumer]

8 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

It was not a good movie but it it struck a chorde with audiences no doubt 

 

It was one of the best films of 2002 and it struck a chord with millions of people

[Lordmandeep]

12 minutes ago, Baumer said:

 

It was one of the best films of 2002 and it struck a chord with millions of people

 

It was a good movie to millions no doubt, that was just my opinion about the film. 

[Chaz]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

 

Legs are dead in today's market.  You'll never have a run like that again.  2002 was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before internet piracy.

We had Kazaa in 2002. I pirated most of the big films that year.

[Cochofles]

It was the textbook definition of "word of mouth hit," "crowd-pleasing smash," and "sleeper hit."

 

[Biph Shmata]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

 

He said since the founding of boxofficemojo.com....basically since 1998

I know, but I was just pointing out the common thread at least in audience makeup between the two films as at least a partial explanation for both films success. 

[baumer]

33 minutes ago, Chaz said:

We had Kazaa in 2002. I pirated most of the big films that year.

 

Yea i pirated AOTC as well. But its so much wuicker And easier now

[jedieb]

It was an excellent ADULT comedy. It reminded me of Crocodile Dundee when it came out. My wife and I were in our early 30's and already had a couple of kids, we were its target audience. We weren't there OW. Like many, WOM got us to the theater and it delivered solid laughs.

[Chaz]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

 

Yea i pirated AOTC as well. But its so much wuicker And easier now

If piracy was as easy as it is now, I never would have paid to see a movie in high school.

[filmlover]

3 hours ago, Baumer said:

Basically what Tele said.

 

I'll expand a bit more.  I was born in Canada.  My ex wife was born in Portugal.  This is the scenario for a lot of married couples in North America.  You have one person born in the country that they dwell in and their spouse is European or just someone not American/Canadian.  The issues this film touched on were issues that any one of us could relate to.  Cultural differences were written in a humourous way that many of us hadn't seen before.  And this got a lot fo people to the theater, that otherwise don't go or go sparingly.  I saw the film three times.  The first time, as is customary with me, was alone.  I laughed myself silly.  I told my wife about it and then the next time we saw it together and she, being less prone to laugh at things, also laughed in all the right spots.  This got the two of us to take her parents....two older Portuguese people who have been in Canada for about 50 years but still didn't speak the language very well, and what I witnessed in the theater was not only shocking but it was joyous.  They loved it.  They laughed and laughed and laughed and on the way home from the theater, they spoke to their daughter in Portuguese and went over all the funny bits in the movie.

 

Basically it touched on things that so many could relate to and this gave it the insane WOM that it benefited from.

For real, I saw the movie twice in theaters and the audience howled all the way through both times.