Yes, Helen Fielding is working on a third Bridget Jones installment, which will probably deal with the 40ish Bridget’s troubles getting pregnant by her adoring swain, Mark Darcy. And yes, we can assume that three major stars will happily return for the third film in a Bridget Jones trilogy–after all, while Colin Firth is at his career apex with an Oscar win for The King’s Speech plus the upcoming John le Carre thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which looks damned good, he knows perfectly well that Jane Austen is his career good luck charm. He’s the best Darcy ever.
But Renee Zellweger is in a bit of a career slump and could use a boost, as well as an excuse to start eating again, while the biggest role Hugh Grant has tackled of late was participating in the Rupert Murdoch NOTW scandal (he scored). But the truth of the matter is that while the Bridget Jones sequel has been moved to the front burner–as Working Title’s Eric Fellner told me some months back–it is still simmering in development, he reminds via email: “nothing confirmed yet.” The reality is that until there is a finished script–presumably by Richard Curtis or they needn’t bother–none of these people, including rumored director Paul Feig–will be on board.
Firth told Access Hollywood last year:
I can tell you that Bridget and Mark can’t have children, I think that’s the way it goes on. So then she makes the huge mistake of going back to Daniel Cleaver [Hugh Grant’s character] for long enough to get pregnant. And I think he dumps her, and she’s left stranded, and guess who comes back to rescue her?
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The first film installment of Bridget Jones’ Diary, based on the novel by Helen Fielding, was released ten years ago earned a reported $281 million. While critics lambasted the sequel, The Edge of Reason released in 2004, it still earned $262 million worldwide. Thus the odds are pretty damned good we’ll see another sequel.
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