It has had trouble landing a committed director, the script has constantly been in flux and production never quite seemed to commence. Now the third Bridget Jones film seems to be without one of its key players. Hugh Grant has said in a radio interview that he won't be appearing in the new film.
“I decided not to do it,” says Grant, who played love rat Daniel Cleaver in the film, in an interview with Free Radio in the Midlands (picked up by The Telegraph). “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.”
Despite Grant’s request for script re-writes earlier in the film’s development, it would seem that no common ground could be found and he’s decided to skip on playing the cad this time. The film reportedly continues Bridget’s (Renee Zellweger) story in a different direction from Helen Fielding’s third book, Mad About The Boy, which caused controversy by – spoiler alert – killing off Mark Darcey (Colin Firth on film)off-page and leaving Bridget to raise their two sons alone.
Whether or not Grant can be enticed to return, the third film remains sitting in limbo for now. When last we checked in, it was called Bridget Jones’s Baby and had Peter Cattaneo attached to direct. Whether either of those remains true when – or if – the movie hits screens remains to be seen.
For more from Grant, check out our recent pod-chat with the man himself...
P.S. You can check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed. You can subscribe to the magazine here if you like it in paper form, or here if you prefer things digitally.