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The first trailer for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy has been released, confirming the death of Colin Firth’s character Mark Darcy.
The fourth film – co-written by Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, with contributions by Abi Morgan and Dan Mazer – is based on Fielding’s own 2013 novel of the same name.
In the book, Darcy dies in a tragic accident. While Firth appears briefly in the new trailer, it is soon explained that the character now exists only in Jones’s memories, as she is now “a widow, with two wonderful children.”
Two new love interests for Jones are introduced in the form of Leo Woodall(One Day, The White Lotus) and Chiwetel Ejiofor(12 Years a Slave, Doctor Strange).
Hugh Grant also reprises his role as Daniel Cleaver in the film series, having said last month that he was “crammed in” to the new movie despite there being “no obvious role” for him.
“It is a good and moving script – it is extremely funny but very sad,” Grant said on The Graham Norton Show on October 3. “There was no obvious role for me, but I was crammed in.”
He added: “So we didn’t have a 60-year-old Daniel Cleaver wandering around looking at young girls, I made up a good interim story for him.”
The character of perpetual singleton Bridget Jones was created by Helen Fielding in a column for The Independent.
“The Independent asked me if I’d write a column about single life in London as myself. I said no because (ironically enough) I thought it would be embarrassing and exposing,” Fielding later recalled. “Then Charlie Leadbeater – a senior editor – suggested I write as an imaginary character, and I thought, ‘Yessss!’”
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Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy will be released in cinemas internationally on February 12, 2025, and will be available to stream on Peacock in the US beginning February 13, 2025.
