Third time, charmed. In her first major film in six years, Renee Zellweger will return to the big screen as her endearingly hapless character for the third installation of the series, Bridget Jones’s Baby, Universal Pictures announced via Twitter on Friday, Oct. 2. Zellweger’s last box-office flick was 2009’s thriller Case 39, opposite Bradley Cooper.
It’s been 11 years since the 46-year-old actress first reprised her role in 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and 14 years since she first stepped into the well-worn heels in the original Bridget Jones’s Diary (based on Helen Fielding’s bestselling novel) back in 2001.
Times have changed since then, and in the first image from the upcoming film that Universal is sharing with fans, Zellweger-as-Bridget is clutching an iPad with a red cover to her chest with a secretive smile on her face.
“Bridget Jones’s Baby has started filming,” the accompanying tweet reads.
The third film is reportedly a departure from the third book, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, in which Bridget’s beau, Mark Darcy, dies. Colin Firth, who played Mark in the previous two films, will return to play the iconic leading man once more.
Hugh Grant, who played Bridget’s ex-boyfriend, Daniel Cleaver, will not be rejoining his former cast mates, however.
“I decided not to do it, but I think they’re going to go ahead and to it without Daniel,” the actor told Free Radio in the West Midlands last October. “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.”
But fans of the series need not fret — Grey’s Anatomy alum Patrick Dempsey will be joining the latest flick to add some eye candy to the mix, though his role is presently unknown.
The film is set to release September 2016.