Hugh Grant is at the edge of reason. The British heartthrob, 54, has officially exited the highly anticipated third installment of the Bridget Jones’s Diary series. The third book, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, was penned by author Helen Fielding and released in 2013.
Rumors of a third film with star Renee Zellweger reprising the title role have been in the works for years, but now Grant’s scandalous, playboy character Daniel Cleaver will not be a part of the project.
In Mad About the Boy, Bridget and Daniel don’t have a romantic relationship, but he does play a key part in her children’s lives.
“I decided not to do it,” Grant told Free Radio of the sequel. “But I think they’re going to go ahead and do it without Daniel. 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.”
The potential film, which has yet to be picked up by a studio, seems less likely to happen these days. Back in 2012, Working Title and Universal were developing the film Bridget Jones’s Baby, based on a screenplay by Fielding, but not on her 2013 book. At the time the film was stalled, and star Colin Firth told the Chicago Sun-Times, “You might be seeing Bridget Jones’s granddaughter’s story being told by the time we get there.”
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