Bridget Jones has George Clooney in her sights
Bridget Jones is set to be the envy of sad singletons everywhere - by scoring a date with Hollywood hunk George Clooney in her next film.
Clooney is being lined up for a part opposite Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the planned sequel to Bridget Jones’s Diary.
It will be a case of art imitating life because Clooney and Zellweger once enjoyed a few dates of their own.
The plans were revealed today by writer Andrew Davies, who is working on the script for the sequel.
In Helen Fielding’s book, Bridget is sent to interview actor Colin Firth - a man she has lusted after ever since his appearance in Pride and Prejudice.
But Firth played Bridget’s boyfriend Mark Darcy in the first film and is set to reprise his role in the sequel - leaving scriptwriters with a problem.
The solution was to find another heart-throb actor to play the object of Bridget’s desire and Clooney is the ideal choice.
Davies said: “We’re hoping to substitute George Clooney for Colin Firth because we want Colin to play Darcy again.
“I’ve written four drafts and the latest version is with Renee Zellweger. We are just waiting for her reaction.
“Reactions have been very good all the way along and we want to start filming it this year.”
Typically for Bridget, her meeting with Firth in the book goes disastrously wrong and hopes of a romance are cruelly dashed.
Zellweger, 33, is said to have briefly dated Clooney last year after splitting from fellow Hollywood star Jim Carrey.
The actress put on a stone-and-a-half playing the Chardonnay-swigging Bridget in the first film, which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
She soon slimmed back down to a tiny size six, prompting concern about her health.
Luckily for Zellweger, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason will not require her to pile on so much weight a second time.
Davies explained: “This time the script doesn’t require her to bulk up all that much. The plot involves her doing time in a Thai jail which means she actually has to lose weight.”
Davies, whose credits include adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, plus the forthcoming dramas Dr Zhivago and Daniel Deronda, is co-writing the screenplay with Richard Curtis.
Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding has rushed to deny claims that the character is a Tory.
Shadow Work and Pensions secretary David Willetts said in a speech earlier this week that the fictional heroine was a Tory at heart because she wanted to settle down and get married.
But in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, Fielding wrote: “Mr Willetts has got the whole thing back to front – since one of the things which most threatened to prevent Bridget settling down with or even going out with Mark Darcy was the horrifying discovery that he voted Tory.”
She proved her point by quoting a passage from Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason in which Bridget said: “If I voted Tory I’d be a social outcast. It would be like turning up at Cafe Rouge on a horse with a pack of beagles in tow, or having dinner parties on shiny tables with side plates.”
