After 8 Years, Bridget Is Back

She's baaaack. Everyone's favorite flailing human Bridget Jones is returning to the big screen for Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy, to be released next Valentine's Day. Renee Zellweger will reprise the title role while Hugh Grant, who last appeared in 2004's Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, will return as Daniel Cleaver, though his character doesn't appear in the 2013 novel from author Helen Fielding on which the film is based, per Business Insider. Emma Thompson, who debuted as Bridget's obstetrician-gynecologist in the third installment, 2016's Bridget Jones's Baby, is back, too, per the BBC. Colin Firth, however, is not. Spoiler alert: This film finds Bridget a widowed mother of two.

It's set four years after her husband, Firth's Mark Darcy, was killed by a landmine while assisting aid workers in Sudan, reports Business Insider. At this point, 51-year-old Bridget is ready to reenter the dating world. She is rumored to find a young love interest in the form of newcomer Leo Woodall (One Day, The White Lotus). Fielding's 2013 book, as the Hollywood Reporter points out, describes "hot sex with a 30-year old man." Yet it's possible Woodall is cast as Bridget's son, per Insider. The film, directed by Michael Morris, includes another fresh face for the series in Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave, Love Actually). Universal Pictures plans to release the film in theaters and on Peacock, per the Reporter. (More Bridget Jones stories.)