Is 'Bridget Jones's Diary 4' Really Happening? What We Know

Reneé Zellweger and Colin Firth.

Former singleton Bridget Jones is (reportedly) coming back! A fourth installment of Bridget Jones's Diary is set to begin filming this year, according to The Mail on Sunday. "[Renée Zellweger] is excited about bringing Bridget back," a source told the outlet. "She adores the character so much. Bridget Jones fever is expected to sweep across London this spring."

Zellweger has previously spoken about her desire to revisit the beloved character. During an appearance on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show in 2022, the Oscar winner said, "I love being in her shoes. I mean, it makes me giggle, you know, every day on set the choices that we get to make about just how awkward we can make her circumstances. It's just so much fun."

Zellweger also noted, "I think it's really rare to get to follow a character through different stages in her life. And in a way that, you know, we find her relatable because she parallels our own life experiences at that time. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, Helen did write another book, so there's that, you know. We'll see."

Meanwhile, author Helen Fielding, who created the rom-com heroine, has said that she wants to see an adaptation of her 2013 book, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

"Yes I’m working on it and I really hope it will happen. Every film that gets made is a miracle—it’s really difficult to make films happen and to make them good," Fielding said on the Radio Times' View From My Sofa Podcast in 2022. "But I’d love to see it on the screen."

While rom-com fans await Bridget's return to the big screen, here is everything we know about the reported fourth Bridget Jones's Diary movie, from cast to plot to potential release date.

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When will Bridget Jones's Diary 4 be released?

A release date has yet to be confirmed, but the movie will reportedly begin filming in London in May of 2024.

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Who is in the Bridget Jones's Diary 4 cast?

Renée Zellweger is said to be reprising her role as the titular character. According to The Mail on Sunday, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, who played Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver, respectively, "are both expected to return in their roles in some capacity." It was revealed at the end of the third film that Daniel is actually alive one year after his plane went down.

What will happen in Bridget Jones's Diary 4?

The third installment, Bridget Jones's Baby, saw Zellweger's character finally marry her longtime love interest, Mark Darcy, who ended up being the father of her son, William. The fourth Bridget Jones's Diary film will reportedly be based on Helen Fielding's 2013 book, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, which killed off Mark, leaving Bridget a widowed mother of two.

A description for Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, via Penguin Random House, reads: "Fourteen years after landing Mark Darcy, Bridget’s life has taken her places she never expected. But despite the new challenges of single parenting, online dating, wildly morphing dress sizes, and bafflingly complex remote controls, she is the same irrepressible and endearing soul we all remember—though her talent for embarrassing herself in hilarious ways has become dangerously amplified now that she has 752 Twitter followers. As Bridget navigates head lice epidemics, school-picnic humiliations, and cross-generational sex, she learns that life isn’t over when you start needing reading glasses—and why one should never, ever text while drunk."

Discussing the book with TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager in 2013, Fielding said, "With something like ‘Bridget,’ which is an unexpected success, you have a choice. Either you keep carrying on, doing the same thing—over and over again—or it means something really important to you, and you wait until you’re ready and you have something important to say again.”

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