Wuthering Heights coming to North America in 2012

Lots of news outlets are reporting the news that Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights now has a North American distributor. From Variety:

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American rights to Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights."
Oscilloscope made the announcement Wednesday at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. [...]
Oscilloscope plans to release the film theatrically next year followed by releases on DVD and in multiple digital platforms. (Dave McNary)

Other sites echoing the news are Shockya, Britscene, IndieWire and its Thompson on Hollywood, Hollywood News and The Hollywood Reporter.

The Boston Phoenix Outside the Frame reviews the film and throws in a couple of blunders for free:

British director Andrea Arnold’s (“Red Road;” “Fish Tank”) audacious adaptation of Charlotte Brönte’s “Wuthering Heights,” where nature rules and which features one of the baddest bad boys of English literature, brooding, hot-blooded Heathcliff.
This is no Merchant Ivory version of the often adapted classic. The Yorkshire countryside sprawls out like a mossy lunar landscape and the mud-choked, ramshackle homestead of the title, where the Good Samaritan patriarch Earnshaw takes the foundling Heathcliff, looks like a set from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Grim natural beauty abounds, but so does natural cruelty, like the casual slaughter of animals, including cute puppies hung from a fence.
But the brutal setting probably won’t disturb Brönte purists as much as Arnold’s narrative style. Scarcely any of Bronte’s original dialogue survives and the story is told strictly in images, sound, and seamless editing, a dreamlike flow that evokes the subjective passage of time. But most controversial for some is the casting: Arnold’s Heathcliff is black.
When I interviewed Arnold she disagreed that this was such a radical idea.
“I think that people who really know the book realize that it makes sense because if you read the descriptions, he [Heathcliff] was very different from them,” she says. “He was exotic compared to them. They’re from Yorkshire and he’s from another world. I felt it was important for him to be different and for him to be dark skinned because that’s how he is in the book.” (Peter Keough)

Brontë purists are never quite so disturbed as when the wrong book is attributed to the wrong author and said author's name is misspelled. We wonder if Andrea Arnold was asked about her adaptation of 'Charlotte Brönte's novel' too?

AboutMyArea reports that the film will play an important role in the forthcoming Leeds International Film Festival (3 - 20 November):

The latest adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights has been announced as the opening gala screening as the Leeds International Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary.
The much-anticipated new version of the classic novel set in Yorkshire and filmed on the North Yorkshire Moors will open the 18-day festival with a gala screening at Leeds Town Hall on Thursday 3 November.
The film which stars Leeds newcomer James Howson as Heathcliff and Kaya Scodelario, star of hit television drama ‘Skins', as Cathy has already been hailed as ‘stunning' and ‘groundbreaking' by film critics and picked up the prize for Best Cinematography at last week's prestigious Venice Film Festival. [...]
Leeds City Council executive member for leisure Councillor Adam Ogilvie said:
"Leeds International Film Festival is a hugely popular annual highlight in the city and Wuthering Heights is sure to be another fantastic opening gala. The film is the perfect choice to launch this year's festival as it also represents the exciting growth of film culture in the Yorkshire region with Leeds at its heart."
Director of Leeds International Film Festival Chris Fell said:
"I'm delighted that the 25th Leeds International Film Festival will open with one of the most talked-about films of the year, and one with strong associations to the Yorkshire region. Andrea Arnold's raw interpretation of Wuthering Heights is a powerful experience and like none that has come before."
Tickets for Wuthering Heights and the Leeds International Film Festival including Film Festival Passes are now on sale at the City Centre Box Office at The Carriageworks off Millennium Square, over the telephone (0113 224 3801), and online (www.leedsfilm.com).

justAtad reviews the film.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights