Somewhere along the line, a third Bridget Jones film has apparently gone from being a vaguely mooted development-hell project, to an actively going concern on its way into production at Universal. Deadline are reporting that Bridesmaids director Paul Feig has just withdrawn from the movie, which means that Universal and Working Title will need a new helmer ASAP if the plan is really to start shooting Bridget Jones 3 in January.
Despite Bridget being played by Renee Zellweger in the Diary (2001) and The Edge of Reason (2004), the series seems to be viewed as quintessentially British in Hollywood, which is the issue Feig cited for his departure: he apparently feels he has the wrong comedy sensibility.
The material he was dealing with isn't yet clear: there is no third Helen Fielding book on which to base a screenplay, although Fielding did continue Bridget's columns in The Independent beyond the two novels, and further developments saw Bridget getting pregnant with the dastardly Daniel Cleaver, without ever managing quite to ditch lovely Mark Darcy.
Deadline claim that Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant are all "eager to return". We can't speak for Zellweger and Grant, but Firth did seem amenable last year, telling Mark Lawson that "Sometimes a third film is an improvement on a second," and that, with all the principle cast now a decade older than when the story began, "The idea of Mark and Daniel and Bridget in advanced stages of deterioration could be quite fun..."
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