Colin Firth talks Bridget Jones 3

Last July it was announced that development was underway on a third Bridget Jones movie, following on from the Diary (2001) and the Edge of Reason (2004). Since then, silence. But Thursday night's Front Row, the BBC Radio 4 "arts, culture and media" show (you can listen again here for the next week), contained a tantalising snippet from Colin Firth.

Firth was on the programme to talk about his Oscar-nominated turn in A Single Man, and the chat turned from his getting into shape for his nudey scenes, to his iconic wet-shirted introduction in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, to pastiching Mr D'Arcy in Bridget Jones and St Trinian's.

Asked about further instalments of the two film franchises, Firth guaranteed that "St Trinian’s and I will be parting company. I think Geoffery Thwaites has run his course, and everybody’s clear about that."

But he was far more open to revisiting Bridget. "I think that could be very interesting," he said, "because Helen [Fielding] is such an interesting writer."

Fielding continued Bridget's columns in The Independent beyond the two novels, and further developments saw Bridget trying to get pregnant, without ever managing quite to ditch Mark D'Arcy or Daniel Cleaver. "I haven’t followed it," continued Firth, "but sometimes a third film is an improvement on a second. I don’t really want to be part of a perpetual franchise, but we're all getting so old! I think the idea of Mark D’Arcy and Daniel Cleaver and Bridget Jones in advanced stages of deterioration could be quite fun. We’re making a comedy after all."*

Rene Zellweger was already tentatively attached, so it sounds like two thirds of the original love triangle are at least willing to give the script, when it materialises, some serious consideration. Will Hugh Grant prove similarly amenable? We saw Did You Hear About the Morgans? Our magic 8-ball is saying "signs point to yes".

/Empire Online/