The new Bridget Jones movie is very sad, says Hugh Grant

Bridget Jones fans have long adored the film for its heartwarming, funny and heartwarming scenes.

But Hugh Grant has warned that the fourth installment in the franchise – due out on Valentine’s Day next year – will have a very different tone.

Warning: If you don’t want to know about the plot of Bridget Jones 4, watch now…

“As well as being very funny, it’s very sad,” said the actor, who will reprise his role as antagonist Daniel Cleaver.

He also said that there is “no clear role” for him in the film, but “he wants to follow me”.

Oscar winner Renée Zellweger also returns as the title character in Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy.

The film takes its title from the latest Bridget Jones novel, published in 2013.

In the book, readers rejoin Bridget in her 50s, a mother of two and widowed after the death of her husband Mark Darcy.

Darcy was played by Colin Firth in the previous Bridget Jones film.

The production studio has yet to comment on how the new film will follow the storyline of its namesake, but it has been revealed that author Helen Fielding has written the script.

Speaking on the Graham Norton showGrant points out that Fielding has used real-life tragedies to come up with the plotline.

“He has a sad story,” he said.

“She married an American screenwriter, they had a child and then she died.”

Grant said that Fielding then started writing a novel about a woman raising a child by herself, and then realized that the main character was “bit like Bridget”.

“So they made a Bridget Jones book,” he said.

“And it’s also very funny, very sad.”

Grant, who is best known for his roles in romcoms including Notting Hill and Four Weddings and Funeral, does not appear in the third film.

He said that initially, he felt there was “no role” for his character, Daniel, in the fourth version.

“But they want to follow me,” he said.

So she said she sat down with producers to help shape the character, known in her previous films as a serial woman.

“I think what they’re proposing is good, but it’s not good.

“And I think he needs a third dimension, now he’s in his 60s, you can’t just make him smooth down the King’s Road to see young girls.

“Something has to happen to him now.

“So we came up with a little better – I came up with a little better – interim story.”

The final version got approval, he said.

“It’s actually a very good script and moving. And I say that as a person who is terrible about the script. This is very good.”

Fielding’s first book Bridget Jones’s Diary was published in 1996 and the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was released three years later.

Written in the form of a personal diary, the novels chronicle the life of a hapless 30-something working woman in London.

In 2001, the first film adaptation starring American actress Zellweger, with Grant as Daniel Cleaver and Colin Firth as Mark Darcy, was released.

Zellweger was nominated for an Oscar for the role and, in 2004, the sequel was released, although it was not received critically.

Emma Thompson, who debuted her character as desperate obstetrician Bridget in the third film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, is also set to return in the fourth film.

New faces on the cast list include Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave) and Leo Woodall (One Day), who is rumored to be playing Bridget’s younger love interest when they are dating again.

Fielding previously said that he had decided to write Mark Darcy out of the series because he did not want Bridget to be “a smug married”, a fate considered truly lamentable by previous musings of Jones.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is set for release in the UK on Valentine’s Day 2025.