Third Bridget Jones Movie in the Works

Published by Jeff Leins on: July 15th, 2009

A third Bridget Jones movie is in the early stages at Working Title and has already attached Renee Zellweger to reprise her role as the British publishing executive.

The untitled third installment will likely be based on Helen Fielding’s weekly columns in 2005 for the British newspaper “The Independent.”  In the stories, the now 4o-year-old Bridget attempts to have a baby before it’s too late.  No writer has been hired yet, but the production is rumored for a start date late next year.

Variety notes the new sequel comes as Working Title struggles to keep its 45 staffers on payroll and Zellweger’s recent movies have all been flops at the box office.

The first movie in 2001, Bridget Jones’s Diary, made $71 million on a budget of $25 million and gathered an Oscar nomination for Zellweger.  The second in 2004, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, did poorly with critics and barely broke even stateside with a $40 million budget.

Do people really want to see another Bridget Jones?  I thought it was pretty well established that follow-up stories to the original hit don’t work.  It’s not worth Zellweger putting on a bunch of weight again for a middling movie for another story about a mid-life biological clock crisis.