Bridget Jones 3 is officially happening, and we can look forward to seeing Grey’s Anatomy‘s Patrick Dempsey romance (?!) Renée Zellweger.

In 2013, Helen Fielding released a third novel in her popular Bridget Jones series. (Spoiler alert for the premise of the novel!)

Mad About the Boy is set 14 years after Bridget’s wedding to Mark Darcy. Tragically, Mark (played in the movies by Colin Firth) has now died, and Bridget is left to tackle the modern dating world as a middle-aged single mother, and finds herself in a whirlwind romance with a much younger man.

Yeah. Mark dies. We’re bummed, too. (Although, conspiracy theory: he’s not really dead!).

Now, Variety has learned that Patrick Dempsey will join Zellweger and Firth in the third movie, titled Bridget Jones’s Baby.

Considering that the other two movies are very, very loose adaptations of Fielding’s books, the plot of Mad About the Boy won’t necessarily dictate Bridget Jones’ Baby, although Fielding has been co-writing early drafts of the script with David Nicholls (author of One Day and Us).

So the big question is: will Mark Darcy die (and/or come back to life) in Bridget Jones’ Baby? Certainly, they could be bringing in Patrick Dempsey as a romantic rival to Mark, and it’s easier for Bridget to fall in love with him if Mark is out of the picture.

At the same time, the movies have romanticized the Mark/Bridget relationship much more than it ever was in the books, and we’re not so sure movie fans will be as forgiving as such a dramatic development as readers of the book series.

Mark Darcy aside, however (blasphemy!), Patrick Dempsey is a very compelling romantic lead, as evidenced when he starred opposite Amy Adams in Enchanted. Presumably Hugh Grant will not reprise his role as Daniel Cleaver for this movie, so they’ll need a slick, charming replacement.

We remain cautiously optimistic for the next chapter in the saga of Bridget Jones.