Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is measuring up like a box office juggernaut in the UK – but in the US, it’s nowhere to be seen. Some thoughts…
It’s Valentine’s weekend. Love is in the air, and so is the delicate waft of a frighteningly large Galaxy chocolate brand partnership. That’s right, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is here, in what could be the most perfect combination of film, release date and marketing campaign since Barbie. Pink, it seems, is a real hot ticket – marketing teams, I hope you’re writing this down.
The similarities with Greta Gerwig’s giga-hit don’t end there. In the last week, Odeon and Vue have reported Bridget’s UK pre-sales are outstripping Mattel’s 2023 blockbuster. Mad About The Boy is poised to be the biggest British film of 2025 but – thanks to a pessimistic deal with US streamer Peacock before production began – is skipping stateside cinemas entirely. But for a franchise whose US receipts have been on a downward trajectory even while the UK’s enthusiasm remained steady, it’s hard to argue the decision was definitely the wrong one.
Jones has never been the same hit in the US as it is in the UK, of course. Here, the former Independent column star has become something of an institution. Clumsy, hand-wringing and desperately middle-class, she perfectly encapsulates the British self-image while Hugh Grant’s bumbling pseudo-aristocrat more closely resembles what Americans would like us to be (Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill both significantly over-performed in the US on release). Things are only complicated slightly by the fact Jones is played by American Renée Zellweger – apparently the only one capable of putting on a decent British accent (don’t fact-check this).
This weekend is already looking like a busy one for the USA’s multiplexes, anyhow, with Captain America: Brave New World debuting alongside fellow Brit Paddington In Peru (three months after the brave little bear first appeared over here). Smaller screens, and audience attention spans, are still stuffed with the year’s awards contenders – though Paddington has historically performed comparably to Bridget both here and abroad, it might be a bit much to expect Americans to cope with two British icons on the same weekend.
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Besides, events like these are occasionally useful for the British psyche. Flawed as box office logic might be, it does sometimes serve as a healthy reminder that we are not America. Last year, Wicked was the number one film in the UK versus a comfortable third place in the States. In 2023, Wonka and Oppenheimer outstripped The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. Some years, a bit of cultural distinction between the two sides of the Atlantic is more important than others.
Rejoice, then, because we get a new (and very good) Bridget Jones film in cinemas, and our American cousins do not. They couldn’t even have a Galaxy partnership there either; all their chocolate tastes of gone off milk.
Bloody hell, things got a bit patriotic there. We’re still shit at trains though, right?
