Hugh Grant has turned down third Bridget Jones movie

Hugh Grant will not reprise his role as the shady but sexy book publisher in a third Bridget Jones film, co-starring Colin Firth and Renee Zellweger.

It has had trouble landing a committed director, the script has constantly been in flux and production never quite seemed to commence. Now the third Bridget Jones film seems to be without one of its key players.

“The book’s excellent, by the way, but the script is completely different—or the script as I last saw it a few years ago,” Grant said in a Free Radio interview. “And in the end I decided not to do it. But I think they are going to go ahead and do it without Daniel.”

The film reportedly continues Bridget’s (Renee Zellweger) story in a different direction from Helen Fielding’s third book, Mad About The Boy.

Grant’s comments come as The Sun reported that Emma Thompson has been enlisted to work on the movie’s script.

Whether or not Grant can be enticed to return, the third film remains sitting in limbo for now. When last we checked in, it was called Bridget Jones’s Baby and had Peter Cattaneo attached to direct. Whether either of those remains true when – or if – the movie hits screens remains to be seen.