The Big Sick - Interview with Kumail Najiani and Emily V. Gordon

The Big Sick is a new movie that is going to give you ALL the feels. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll just want to hug your loved ones after you leave the theatre. 

The new film ( getting critical praise across the board) is  based on the real courtship of Kumail Nanjiani and his now-wife, Emily Gordon. Kumail's traditional Pakistani Muslim family is unhappy with his relationship with Emily, a White American. When Emily is sent into a medically induced coma caused by a mysterious illness, Kumail must take charge of the crisis with her parents, Beth and Terry, (played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano) whom he barely knows.

Zoe Kazan and Kumail Nanjiani in, The Big Sick

The Big Sick premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017. Shortly after, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film, after bids from Sony Pictures and Fox Searchlight Pictures. The $12 million acquisition marked the second-largest deal of the 2017 festival. Lionsgate partnered with Amazon on the U.S. release. It also screened at South by Southwest on March 16, 2017, where it won an Audience Award in the category Festival Favorites. The film had a limited release on June 23, 2017, before it will go wide on July 14, 2017.

In the film's limited opening weekend it made $435,000 from five theatres (a per-theatre gross of $87,000, the best of 2017).

The Big Sick is currently playing on a few screens in the U.S. It opens wider on June 28th and then across North America on July 14th. Do yourselves a favour and go see it! 

I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Kumal and Emily in Toronto where they stopped for a promo visit to discuss the cathartic process of making this fantastic film together.