Exclusive: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 to film in Greece this summer

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is set to shoot in Corfu and around Greece from 5 July to 3 August this year.

The project was on hold due to insurance issues caused by Covid but is now expected to go into production in the Mediterranean country with Nia Vardalos back on board as scriptwriter and star.

Joel Zwick, director of the original My Big Fat Greek Wedding film, is rumoured to return to helm this third instalment in the franchise, which will revolve around the anticipated wedding of Paris (Elena Kampouris), daughter of Toula (Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett).

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 was backed by Universal Pictures, Gold Circle, HBO and Playtone.

Another big project that could be heading to Greece is Uberto Pasolini’s The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, which is a gritty retelling of Odysseus’ return home from war.

KFTV understands the film’s producers, James Clayton and Pasolini for Red Wave Films, are weighing up whether to shoot in Greece or Italy. For the former, the production team are considering Corfu and the Peloponnese.

The Return is currently being sold by HanWay Films at the Cannes film festival.

Greece is proving to be an extremely popular filming location, helped by a potential 40% cash rebate, with recent big shoots there including Ruben Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness and David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, both in competition at Cannes.

Others include Amazon and Paramount’s political action thriller Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan; Disney+ biopic Rise (formerly known as Greek Freak), about the life of Milwaukee Bucks basketball player Giannis Anteto­kounmpo; the second season of Apple TV+’s Tehran, starring Glenn Close; Panos Koutras’ Greek-French-Belgian co-production Dodo, and Millennium Media’s gangster movie The Enforcer, starring Antonio Banderas, which shot last summer and doubled Thessaloniki for Miami.