Bridget Jones Is Back: Zellweger To Star, But Key Love Interest Won't Return

One Day actor Leo Woodall and 12 Years A Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor also join the cast for the latest update on Bridget Jones's life - but there's one star missing.

Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant are set to return for a fourth Bridget Jones film.

Two-time Oscar winner Zellweger is back in Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, while Grant reprises his role as rapscallion Daniel Cleaver.

Emma Thompson, who starred in the third film as Bridget's despairing obstetrician, also returns, with 12 Years A Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor and One Day actor Leo Woodall joining the cast.

Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth, will not be back this time.

British author Helen Fielding previously said she had decided to write Bridget's love out of the third book because she didn't want Bridget to become "a smug married".

In the Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy book, Bridget is a widow in her 50s with two children after Mark's death some years earlier. However, details of the film's plot and whether it will follow the book have not yet been revealed.

The film is set for US release on Valentine's Day 2025. Its UK release date has not been announced.

Based on the 1996 book, Bridget Jones's Diary the film was released in 2001 to wide acclaim, starring US star Zellweger as a 30-something chardonnay-swilling British singleton, obsessed with her weight and finding a man.

British actors Firth and Grant played the two men fighting for her attention.

The sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, followed in 2004, taking the story to Thailand, while the third instalment, Bridget Jones's Baby, was released in 2016, and saw Firth's Darcy competing with billionaire US love guru Jack Qwant, played by Patrick Dempsey, for Bridget's attention.

Zellweger last appeared on the big screen in Judy, for which she picked up her second Oscar in 2020 for her portrayal of famed singer and actress Judy Garland.