Bridget Jones is heading back to the screen.
After months of quiet chess pieces moves, Universal Pictures and Working Title have finally put in place the talent for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, the fourth installment of the British-based romantic film comedy series.
Renée Zellweger is set to return as the lovable but flailing at life Jones, as is Hugh Grant as rapscallion Daniel Cleaver. Emma Thompson, who appeared in the 2016 entry, Bridget Jones’s Baby, is back as well, while newcomers include Chiwetel Ejiofor and up-and-comer Leo Woodall, best known for his work in The White Lotus season two.
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Michael Morris, who helmed the Andrea Riseborough drama To Leslie, will be sitting in the director’s chair when cameras roll for the feature, which adapts the best-selling 2013 novel by Jones creator Helen Fielding. Fielding also wrote the script.
Readers and audiences have seen Jones have love triangles, find romance and even have a baby, but in the novel Mad About a Boy, the woman found new levels of embarrassment as tweets and texts were added to her diary as her forms of expression. Jones is now navigating life, work, family and love as a 51-year-old single mother and widow, to boot (I know, right?!). And of course, there’s the hot sex with a 30-year old man.
Universal will release the rom-com on Peacock on Valentine’s Day 2025, while internationally it will be released in theaters.
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Jo Wallett are producing through Working Title Films, while the company’s Amelia Granger and Sarah-Jane Wright executive produce. Fielding will also executive produce the project. Miramax is co-financing the feature.
Zellweger first played Jones in the 2001 adaptation, which not only proved to be a massive hit, it earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress. Grant and Colin Firth also starred in the movie, with the trio returning for the 2004 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Grant sat out 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, though Zellweger and Firth returned.
The trio of movies have made more than $760 million at the worldwide box office.
Zellweger’s last big-screen outing was Judy, the 2019 biopic of actress Judy Gardland, for which she won her second Academy Award. She is repped by CAA and John Carrabino Management.
Most recently, Grant could be seen in the Max limited series The Regime in a guest starring role opposite Kate Winslet. He also stole scenes in Warner Bros.’ Wonka in the role of a diminutive Oompa Loompa. The movie has grossed over $625 million globally. He is repped by CAA.
Thompson, repped by CAA and Hamilton Hodell, last appeared in Netflix’s Matilda: The Musical.
Ejiofor recently starred in the Showtime series The Man Who Fell to Earth, and at the Sundance Film Festival in January he unveiled his second feature as a director, the drama Rob Peace. He is repped by CAA; the U.K.’s Markham, Froggatt and Irwin; and Hirsch Wallerstein.
In The White Lotus, Woodall played Jack, a British boy who helps plan the murder of another character in the acclaimed show’s Italy-set second season. He currently stars in Netflix’s romantic drama One Day and was recently cast in James Vanderbilt’s legal drama Nuremberg alongside Russell Crowe, Rami Malek and Michael Shannon. He is repped by Gersh, Hamilton Hodell, Anonymous Content and Goodman Genow.
Morris, who was also the executive producer and director on the final season of Better Call Saul, is repped by UTA and Paul Hastings.
Senior executive vp production development Erik Baiers and creative executive of production development Jacqueline Garell will oversee the project on behalf of Universal.
