The undisputed breakout of Bridgerton season one is Regé-Jean Page, the duke himself. With all the momentum of being the breakout star of Netflix’s biggest original show to date, Page is wasting no time. He has booked his first major role post-Bridgerton and will co-star with Chris Pine in the Dungeons & Dragons movie directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. There is zero information on who, or what, Page will be playing. He could be a human or elf character, in which case he would be fully hot on screen. Or he could be an orc, in which case, less hot on screen. It’s actually not even clear if this will be a movie fully set in the world of D&D, or if it will feature a game play angle (directors Goldstein and Daley previously made Game Night), so really, all we know at this point is that RJP and Chris Pine are leading the film. Besides Pine and Page, the cast so far also includes Justice Smith and Michelle Rodriguez. I don’t know how you put together a D&D movie and don’t cast one of Hollywood’s most famous RPG players, Joe Manganiello, but so far he has not been cast.
Page will be hosting SNL this weekend, and he is now the current internet favorite to be the next James Bond (sorry, I’m still Team Dev Patel Is Bond). The duke is wasting no time moving on from Bridgerton, which makes sense because no one is sure how involved he, or Phoebe Dynevor, will be in season two. Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) was a significant figure in season one, but that was about setting him up to be the lead in season two. But Phoebe and Simon’s story is resolved, so beyond inventing new conflict for them, there won’t be much for them to do as Bridgerton shifts focus to Anthony and Kate. Dungeons & Dragons is expected to film this summer for a summer 2022 release date. Bridgerton will also be filming most of the spring/summer. The inevitable overlap suggests to me that RJP doesn’t expect to be in Bridgerton much, since he’s booked a major role elsewhere. Will you miss the duke? Or do we think Anthony capable of becoming Bridgerton’s next heartthrob? (Lainey: no thank you.)
