‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ Crew Reunite for Charity Short Film

By Stewart Clarke

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The stars of “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” including Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell and Kristin Scott Thomas, are reuniting for the first time in a quarter-century for another matrimonial mishap in “One Red Nose Day and a Wedding,” a one-off short film that will air on the BBC in Britain and NBC in the U.S. next year as part of the fundraising telethons in both countries.

MGM is supporting the project, and production is underway. The writer of the original film, Richard Curtis, and its director, Mike Newell, are on board, as are actors John Hannah, Rowan Atkinson and James Fleet. The producers also promise special guest stars in the new short film, which picks up 25 years after the movie ended and features a fifth wedding.

“We’re all definitely older – I suspect no wiser,” Curtis said. “It’s been really enjoyable working out what’s happened to all the characters – and now they get back together for the fifth wedding, where, as usual, not everything will go as planned.”

The charity special will come two years after “Red Nose Day Actually,” which used the same formula to make a short follow-up to Curtis’ “Love Actually.” The writer-producer-director is the founder of Comic Relief, the highlight of which is the Red Nose Day telethon, now a TV, comedy, and fundraising institution on British screens every other year.

The new short will run during Red Nose Day 2019 on BBC One on Friday, March 15. In the U.S., it will feature as part of NBC’s programming for Red Nose Day USA in May.

“” was released in 1994 and made a global celebrity of Grant, who went on to star in another hit romcom, “Notting Hill.” “Four Weddings” still pops up in lists of all-time great British pictures. “Truly beguiling romantic comedy is one of the hardest things for a modern film to pull off, but a winning British team has done it,”  Variety  said in its review at the time.

The film has also inspired a series that is in production for Hulu in the U.S.