March 22. V v good. Colin and Hugh in new Bridget film
FOR decades they have fought over singleton Bridget Jones as she searches for The One.
And now it can be revealed that Colin Firth and Hugh Grant are back to reprise their roles as Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver.
Firth and Grant, both 63, have agreed to be part of the fourth – and probably final – Bridget Jones film, which begins shooting in London in May and will again star Renée Zellweger.
Sources say the directors are ‘ecstatic’ that both agreed to star in the film. One insider said it ‘would not have been the same’ without them, adding: ‘Both men are very much in demand so to make everything come together feels like a great coup. However it ends for Bridget, there will be some roller coaster rides with these two men involved.’
Last month, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Helen Fielding’s heroine would make a sensational return 23 years after the first film, Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Pre-production is under way and Ms Zellweger, 54, is scoping out a base for her and her boyfriend, Ant Anstead, in the London area while she films.
The new film comes eight years after the last instalment, Bridget Jones’s Baby, and is based on Ms Fielding’s 2013 novel Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, which saw her as a single mum.
The last film ended with her marrying high-flying lawyer Mark – based on the Jane Austen character – whom she has on-and-off feelings for throughout the previous films. It was also revealed he is father to her baby.
Grant didn’t appear in that film and was presumed dead at the beginning. But at the end there was a newspaper report that said he had been found alive – giving lothario Cleaver a way back for the finale.
In the Mad About The Boy novel, Darcy is dead, leaving Jones as a widow – although it is not known if the new movie will be faithful to that.