Mad About the Boy’ Going to Kill Off Mark Darcy? What We Know So Far

A fourth Bridget Jones movie is on the way! Renée Zellweger will reprise her iconic character in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Additional cast members have been announced, but there’s one major person missing: Colin Firth‘s Mark Darcy.

Firth starred in the three previous Bridget Jones installments, so his absence is raising alarm bells. From what the book tells us about Mark Darcy to new cast members to the Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy release date, scroll down to get all the latest details.

Is Mark Darcy getting killed off?

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is based off Helen Fielding’s 2013 novel of the same name, the third novel in her Bridget Jones book series.

If the film follows the plot of the book, Mark is going to be killed off, which would explain why Firth is not returning. The third Bridget Jones book picks up when Bridget is 50 years old. She’s dealing with the aftermath of Mark’s death five years earlier and being a single mom to their two kids, William and Mabel.

“The hardest thing was calling up Colin Firth to tell him [Mark Darcy was dying],” Fielding told TODAY in 2013 after the book was published. “And it was one of the strangest conversations of my life because I had to ask if he had someone with him, if he was sitting down, and it was literally as if someone really had died. Then we sort of started laughing because they hadn’t.”

When is the release date for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy?

The film adaptation of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is set to be released on Peacock on Valentine’s Day 2025. The movie will be released in theaters internationally, but not in the United States.

The first film, Bridget Jones’s Diary, was released in 2001. The sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, was released in 2004, followed by Bridget Jones’s Baby in 2016.

Who else is in the cast?

In addition to Zellweger, Hugh Grant is set to return as Daniel Cleaver. He was a love interest for Bridget in the first two films. Daniel was seemingly killed off in a plane crash in Bridget Jones’s Baby, but Bridget discovered he was still alive at the end of the film. Emma Thompson, who appeared as Doctor Rawlings in the third film, will be back as well.

New cast members will be joining Zellweger and Grant in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. One Day heartthrob Leo Woodall has been cast (likely as Roxster, Bridget’s much younger love interest). Chiwetel Ejiofor will also play a major role.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Valentine’s Day 2025, Peacock