Hugh Grant pulls out of the third Bridget Jones’s Diary film

The Telegraph
By Tim Walker



Two years after Hugh Grant told Mandrake that filming of the second sequel to Bridget Jones’s Diary was on hold until the writers had made the script more to his liking, I can disclose that the capricious actor has quit the project for good.

“I decided not to do it,” says Grant, who played the love rat Daniel Cleaver in the first two films, in an interview today with Free Radio in the Midlands. “But I think they’re going to go ahead and do it without Daniel. The book’s excellent, by the way, but the script is completely different – well, the script as I last saw it a few years ago.”

It is likely that the 54-year-old actor will be conspicuous by his absence in the long-mooted film which is being written with the active involvement of Helen Fielding – who created the character Bridget – and offers what is described as an alternative version of events to what she tells in her third book in the series, Mad About The Boy.



While Mark Darcy – played by Colin Firth – is killed off in Fielding’s latest book, it is understood that he will be spared in the forthcoming film, which will take up Bridget’s story after she has turned 40 and is yearning for a baby. Renée Zellweger – who played Bridget in the first two films – is believed to be signed up for the project, along with Firth.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.msn.com/en-ie/entertainment/news/hugh-grant-pulls-out-of-the-third-bridget-jones%E2%80%99s-diary-film/ar-BB8v639

Renee Zellweger chopped from Bridget Jones? (No Bridget Jones...in Bridget Jones?)

XPOSE
October  31, 2013



Author Helen Fielding is thought to not be on good terms with Renee. The actress may subsequently be dropped from the Mad About The Boy film, which could have two different scripts.

"They didn't really stay in touch after the last film, though Hugh, Colin and Helen all did and have a great working relationship," a source told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper. "Everyone expected Helen to thank Renee but it wouldn't have been sincere because they aren't good friends.

"The main problem was that Helen, understandably, was very protective over the screenplay and how she saw the role of Bridget being played. But Renee had her own very definite views. There was simply a clash of working personalities."

In the latest book Bridget is a 51-year-old widow with two young kids who dates a toy boy before finding love with a teacher at her son's school.

The newest Bridget Jones installment sees key character Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth in the films, killed off. The possibility of a third flick is in doubt as producers have yet to claim rights to the book.

However they have been working on an independent script called Bridget Jones' Baby. Although it was written by Helen, it allegedly has little connection to the third novel.

Now it's being suggested an actress other than Renee could play the famous character.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.tv3.ie/entertainment_article.php?locID=1.803.874&article=117453

Colin Firth: Bridget Jones film is in the works w/Colin Firth - it's just not the third Bridget Jones book???

"Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy looks unlikely to get film" however...

THE INDEPENDENT

DAISY WYATT  Author Biography   

THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2013

Would a Bridget Jones film be the same without Colin Firth? Movie producers seem to think not.

Film rights to Helen Fielding’s latest novel Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy are yet to be snapped up despite strong book sales, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The new book sees Bridget Jones widowed at the age of 51, following the death of her former love Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth in the film franchise.

The production companies are instead working on Bridget Jones’s Baby, a film based on an original screenplay by Fielding, which will include Colin Firth.

The film, which will star Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant alongside Firth, was due to start filming in 2012 but has been delayed.

Tim Bevan of Working Title told The Hollywood Reporter: “We are still working on the script, hence the delay to the start of production, but the film is going ahead as planned.”

READ MORE HERE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/bridget-jones-mad-about-the-boy-looks-unlikely-to-get-film-8886645.html

Colin Firth stunned by Mark Darcy's death in Bridget Jones

BLOCKBUSTER
October 9, 2013

Colin Firth was stunned when he was told Mark Darcy was being killed off in 'Bridget Jones 3'.

The Oscar-winning actor played the gentlemanly love interest of bumbling heroine Bridget (Renee Zellweger) in the first two film adaptations of Helen Fielding's bestselling novels and was fully expecting to reprise the popular role in the next film.

However, Fielding was forced to break the news to Firth over the phone that his alter-ego doesn't feature in her long-awaited third book, 'Mad About The Boy', and instead leaves Bridget a widower.

She told TIME magazine: ''I did want to tell Colin in person but we were trying to have lunch, and I couldn't really tell him why I was trying to meet him, and he was in a different place. So I ended up telling him he died on the phone.

''I had to ask him if he had someone with him and if he was sitting down. It was like someone actually had died. We had to process it. And I was almost saying, 'I'm so sorry for your loss'.''

The next romantic comedy will see Bridget, now 51, struggling to raises their children Mabel and Billy alone, but Fielding appeared to hint at the possibility of a cameo role for Firth in the form of a ghost.

The author added: ''His presence is very much there in the book and in the child. As I told him, his memory will live on and he will rise from the dead rather like Jesus.''

READ MORE HERE:  http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/article/674407/colin-firth-stunned-by-mark-darcys-death-in.htm

Colin Firth: How Helen Fielding Broke the News About Mark Darcy

TIME
By Radhika Jones @radhikajonesOct. 07, 2013

Fans were horrified to learn of Mark’s death in an excerpt in the U.K.’s Sunday Times Magazine on Sept. 29. But it seemed only right that Firth should hear about his demise in advance from its author.

“I did want to tell Colin in person but we were trying to have lunch, and I couldn’t really tell him why I was trying to meet him and he was in a different place,” Fielding says. “So I ended up telling him he died on the phone.” It was, as she recalls it, a very funny conversation. “I had to ask him if he had someone with him and if he was sitting down. It was like someone actually had died. We had to process it. And I was almost saying, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

READ MORE HERE:http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/07/bridget-jones-exclusive-how-helen-fielding-broke-the-news-about-mark-darcy-to-colin-firth/

Colin Firth: Darcy is dead - Uproar by Bridget Jones fans after delicious Mark is killed off

MIRROR
By James Robertson, Lucy Buckland
September 30, 2013

Twitter exploded with reaction from "Bridge" fans across the world - with some vowing not to buy Fielding's third book

The news that Mark Darcy is dead and Bridget Jones is now a widowed "workless" mother of two has left the nation reeling. Extracts of writer Helen Fielding's third Bridge novel, Mad About The Boy, were published in the Sunday Times Magazine, and grieving fans took to Twitter to vent their frustration over the death of Turkey buffet fan and human rights activist Mark.

 Fifteen years after the last novel in the saga, it turns out unlucky-in-love Bridget married Darcy had two children - Mabel and Billy. Heralding the arrival of "chick lit", Bridget Jones's Diary started life as as a newspaper column in 1995. Two best-selling novels, with their corresponding Hollywood blockbuster film adaptations featuring Renee Zellweger as Bridget and Colin Firth as Darcy, followed.

 Portrayed as a stereotypical 1990s London thirty-something worried about her weight, smoking and alcohol intake, Bridget struck a chord with women of her generation. The original book was eventually voted by readers as one of the 10 novels that defined the 20th century, side by side with Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell or Anne Frank's own diary.

The modern-day heroine's story - loosely based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - was centred around love interests Darcy and her cad boss Daniel Cleaver. After hearing from her last in 1999 with Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, readers will now find Bridget as a 51-year-old widow obsessed with Twitter, wrinkles and weight.

Fielding, who has always denied that the books are autobiographical, is herself a 55-year-old single mother-of-two who ended her relationship with television executive Kevin Curran in 2009. Bridget's new adventures as a fifty-something cougar sees her meet new 30-year-old toy boy boyfriend, Roxter, on Twitter, five years after Darcy's death. But those who want to know what happened to the love of her life will have to wait until about Mad About The Boy is published on October 10, as his death will appear in a flashback deep into the book and not be revealed in advance.



 Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/darcy-dead-twitter-uproar-after-2322950#ixzz2gNc4Ik93 Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

COLIN FIRTH: Mark Darcy is dead: Helen Fielding kills off heartthrob in latest Bridget Jones book (THE MIRROR)

Mark Darcy, the dashing hero who famously rescued Bridget Jones from the lonely life of a singleton, is dead.

The tragic news, which will shock his worldwide legion of fans, was revealed last night by Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding.

In the last volume of Bridget’s diaries, published more than ten years ago, Darcy - played by Colin Firth in the movie - had just proposed to Bridget.

In the latest set of Bridget’s diaries, called Mad About the Boy, it emerges that the pair were set for a lifetime of wedded bliss after getting married and having two children.

But their happiness was not to last and the new book opens five years after Darcy’s death.

Bridget has become a 51-year-old single mum whose days are filled with the school run and dealing with outbreaks of nits.



Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/mark-darcy-dead-helen-fielding-2319180#ixzz2gIxaYFrR
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook