Bridget Jones 4 trailer ‘reimagines’ singleton heroine for 2025 in ‘real life rom-com’-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro

Fans have finally been given their first glimpse at Bridget Jones 4, which shows the famous singleton in a brand-new stage of her life as she’s ‘reimagined’ for audiences in 2025.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is based on author Helen Fielding’s 2013 novel of the same name, in which the now 50-something has devastatingly become a widow – with two small children – after the death of Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).

Director Michael Morris has now explained that there is no ‘remaking’ of Bridget Jones in the new movie, but only making her for ‘now’ and in a very different place with her relationship, family, job – and home.

We last saw her in the 2016 film Bridget Jones’s Baby, after she first graced our screens in the original film in 2001 and its sequel – Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – in 2004.

The trailer begins with a glimpse into the life of Bridget (Renée Zellweger) now as she remembers happiness with Mark as they walk down the street together, before he is revealed to be a memory.

Both Firth and Hugh Grant as bad boy Daniel Cleaver appear once again in the new movie, with Daniel brought back from the dead to describe Bridget as ‘a very naughty nun’ in his own way of encouraging her to get back out there.

Renee is playing Bridget for the fourth time since the first film was released in 2001 (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

Colin Firth starred as Mark Darcy in the franchise (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

For her pals though – present and correct again in the forms of Sally Phillips, James Callis and Sarah Solemani – this looks more like Tinder, which Bridget is not convinced by.

And for Bridget herself, she’s distracted by two new love interests in the form of her kids’ teacher Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and 29-year-old toyboy Roxster (One Day star Leo Woodall).

Of course, for her, this means embarrassments in front of them like having one of her children’s friends ask outside the school gate, next to Mr Wallaker: ‘Why is your granny wearing PJs?’

And then later in the trailer, encountering both him and Roxster as she’s stuck up a tree, clinging on for dear life – ‘a magical man tree’ as she later calls it.

Clearly, something goes well for her there though as there’s then a montage of three people interrogating her over having sex the night before, which results in Bridget unwittingly broadcasting it to the entire studio audience where she’s working – who naturally break out into applause.

Bridget adjusts to becoming a widow in this new film (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

The film takes place four years after Mark’s death as Bridget opens up to love again (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

The trailer also shows glimpses of Dame Emma Thompson reprising her doctor role and doling out some brisk advice to Bridget, while Jim Broadbent as her father quotes Harry Styles to her from his hospital bed.

Celie Imrie and Gemma Jones are also confirmed to be returning.

To the musical stylings of Natasha Bedingfield’s These Words, the Bridget Jones 4 trailer then allows Grant’s Daniel the final word in a bonding moment with Bridget’s son, who he calls ‘miniature Darcy’. Asking after three of his (we assume) girlfriends, Daniel hastily corrects his description of them to having ‘big… hair’ and explains their absence is due to them being busy ‘washing it, they wash each other’s hair’.

Morris, who previously directed To Leslie, called the previous Bridget Jones films and production company Working Title ‘my great educators in what comedies could be, what British films could be’.

Hugh’s cameo in the new film has been highly anticipated by fans (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

The Love Actually actor stars as one of her main suitors (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

At a trailer launch event on Monday, Morris told the audience, including Metro: ‘Our rule in making this film was not to ever think that we were remaking anything. I don’t want to remake Bridget. Bridget is this beautiful thing that has existed for years.

‘So, this was about making a Bridget for now, reimagining what Bridget is now.’

He also discussed the fact that the first film saw Bridget as ‘a 30-something singleton living in London, having that experience’ with the next two movies having ‘sort of revisited her’ in the same place with the same job and largely the same friends.

He explained: ‘The opportunity here was to discover Bridget now, as she is today. It’s the first time Bridget’s lived somewhere different, in a different part of London. It’s the first time that she has a family. It’s the first time that she’s in a very different place in her life.’

The trailer gives a sneak peek to a rather funny meet cute (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

For Morris, this meant an opportunity to ‘make a different version of Bridget, a style of Bridget that perhaps we haven’t seen before’

‘I love the Bridget films, obviously, but this is a new time. We’re all a bit older. We’ve lived a bit, and that’s what this film represents,’ he added.

Morris calls the historic – and new – casting of Bridget Jones ‘a who’s who of British film’, and declares he’s ‘proud to have added to that register with people like Chiwetel and Josette Simon and Leo’.

‘Casting has been at the very heart of what Bridget Jones has represented, for years. I mean, putting together Colin Firth and Hugh Grant all those years ago, was just iconic in every way,’ he enthused.

Bridget is once again seen writing in her famous diary in the trailer (Picture: Working Title/Universal Pictures)

With the end of ‘one of the iconic love stories of modern British culture’, Morris also knew clearly how he wanted to approach its aftermath.

‘I wanted to make a comedy of grief – very much a comedy, very much celebrating life and all the joyfulness that Bridget brings – but with life you can’t ignore the hard bits, it’s going to happen to everybody. So how does Bridget deal with it? How do you attack moving on with the Bridget verve and joyfulness?’

‘In that way, this is a rom-com, but it’s like a real life rom-com, and that’s what I wanted to make. So I hope that that’s one of the things that people take away is, “Oh, I hadn’t seen her like this before”.’

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy will release in UK cinemas on February 14, 2025.

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