Bridget Jones is back! Fourth movie begins filming in May and Renee Zellweger’s already looking for a London home – but will Colin Firth’s character come a cropper?

Her rollercoaster love life, her weight problems and her impressive consumption of chardonnay and cigarettes have captivated the world for more than twenty years.

Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that one-off single Bridget Jones is back.

A fourth film will begin filming in London in May, 23 years after Helen Fielding’s heroine first hit the screen, with pre-production already in full swing.

Renee Zellweger will return in the lead role and, according to sources, is already looking for a house to live in while she is in Britain.

The new film comes eight years after the last installment, Bridget Jones’s Baby, and will be based on Ms Fielding’s 2013 novel, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, in which she found herself raising young children as a single mother while navigating social media and dating apps navigated. .

Ms Zellweger, 54, already has a team looking for accommodation for her and her boyfriend, TV presenter Ant Anstead, 44 (pictured)

Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, who played love rivals Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver, are both expected to return to their roles in some capacity.

A film source said: ‘Bridget is back and about to take over London. Filming is already being mapped out and all pre-production has been completed.

‘There was some uncertainty about whether it would get off the ground, but the film is coming.

“Renee is excited about bringing Bridget back. She loves the character so much. Bridget Jones fever is expected to sweep across London this spring.”

Ms Zellweger, 54, already has a team finding accommodation for her and her boyfriend, TV presenter Ant Anstead, 44, while she works on the project.

On previous shoots, she rented a bachelor pad in Kensington, west London, where she went unnoticed as she shopped locally. But this time she and Anstead, originally from Plymouth, are believed to be looking for something bigger.

In the most recent film, released in 2016, Bridget was shocked to discover she was pregnant. It ended with her marrying Mark, the high-flying lawyer she’d had feelings for on and off throughout the three films. It was also revealed that he was the father of her baby.

Colin Firth (pictured) and Hugh Grant, who played love rivals Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver, are both expected to return to their roles in some capacity

Grant did not appear in that film because Cleaver was presumed dead at the beginning. But eventually a newspaper report appeared stating that he had been found alive.

A book based on that story was published after the film, and after the novel Mad About The Boy, although it was set earlier. And in Mad About The Boy, Mark Darcy is dead, leaving Jones as a widow, although it is not known whether the film will remain true to that.

Asked about a fourth film installment, Fielding previously told Radio Times: ‘Every film that is made is a miracle. I think it’s really hard to make movies and make them happen and make them good, and we want it to be really good. But I really hope so. I’d like to see it on screen.’

Last year there were rumors that the film had been discontinued due to the US actors’ strikes, but sources said these claims were ‘nonsense’.

The first film, Bridget Jones’s Diary, was released in 2001 and grossed £222 million at the box office – more than ten times what it cost to produce. Ms. Zellweger’s last film was the 2019 biopic of Judy Garland.