Lots of stories this week in the Hollywood trades on script problems on the third installment in the popular BRIDGET JONES' DIARY franchise with reports of Hugh Grant exiting the project due to its production delays.
Looking to squelch the franchise-in-crisis rumors, London-based Working Title Films sent out a release to Variety and other trades confirming that Grant remained committed to the third Bridget Jones movie and that the project was making progress towards its production start date.
“Reports that Hugh Grant has exited Bridget Jones’ Baby are untrue,” Tim Bevan, co-chairman of Working Title Films, told Variety in a statement. “We are still working on the script, hence the delay to the start of production, but the film is going ahead as planned.”
Franchise stars Renée Zellweger, Grant and Colin Firth, appeared to be back for the comedy, this time involving Bridget struggling to get pregnant and leaving Firth’s character Mark to go back to Grant's character Daniel.
Peter Cattaneo (The Rocker, The Full Monty) signed on to direct with Helen Fielding, author of the Bridget Jones books, working on the final script revisions with One Day author David Nicholls.
Of course Bevan did not share a firm production start date in today’s press release, which means there’s plenty of script work to be done.