'It is an adaptation of a feeling: my first disemboweling by the baby god'

The Hollywood Reporter features a new edition of Wuthering Heights (February 3, 2026), which includes a new introduction by Emerald Fennell.

Next year, just before her Wuthering Heights hits theaters, Emerald Fennell will make her mark on the novel as well. Simon & Schuster is launching a Female Filmmakers Collection that will feature rereleases of classic literature — each volume will be curated by a different director, tasked with curating a movie-inspired cover, writing a new foreword, and imbuing the paperback with cinematic references and Easter eggs. Fennell’s edition of Emily Brontë’s 1847 tome (originally published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell) will kick off the collection and hit shelves Feb. 3, 2026.

The Hollywood Reporter is exclusively revealing Fennell’s new cover, as well as a sneak peek of the foreword that Fennell wrote for the edition, which will offer insights into her creative vision for the highly anticipated feature film.

“It is too slippery, too wild, too good to distill into two hours of film,” writes Fennell. “Instead what I have attempted to do is adapt my own experience of reading it for the first time. It is an adaptation of a feeling: my first disemboweling by the baby god.” (Seija Rankin)

From that many sites understand, like The Telegraph, that 'Wuthering Heights film won’t be faithful to the ‘sexy, horrible’ book.

Wuthering Heights won’t be a faithful adaptation of the book, the director of the latest remake has warned.

Emerald Fennell, 40, said that Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel was “too slippery” to distil into a time-constrained film.

Instead, the Saltburn director has suggested that her “primal and sexual” adaptation, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, will be told through the lens of her first time reading the book when she was 14 years old.

Writing a foreword for a special edition of the novel, revealed on Friday by The Hollywood Reporter, Fennell said: “It is too slippery, too wild, too good to distill into two hours of film.” (India McTaggart)

Reactor:

The latest trailer for Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights was … well, it was something. The movie has the title in quotation marks, so it’s really “Wuthering Heights” this time. But why, punctuation pedants (implicating myself here), wanted to know?

Well, we may have a small hint. Along with writing and directing the film, Fennell has “curated” a new edition of the novel for Simon & Schuster’s Female Filmmakers Collection. It is less than clear what this means, other than picking a slightly perplexing cover image (most of the Reactor staff initially thought the image, below, was more gynecological than equine-related) and writing a foreword. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “each volume will be curated by a different director, tasked with curating a movie-inspired cover, writing a new foreword, and imbuing the paperback with cinematic references and Easter eggs.”

In her foreword, Fennell writes of the novel, “It is too slippery, too wild, too good to distill into two hours of film. Instead what I have attempted to do is adapt my own experience of reading it for the first time. It is an adaptation of a feeling: my first disemboweling by the baby god.”

My first disemboweling by the baby god. Just sit with that for a minute.

If Fennell is not actually doing a straight adaptation of Emily Brontë’s book—a theory that was already floating around out there—then it helps make sense of a few of the things in the trailer, including the quotation marks and the age of at least one of the stars. The text along with the trailer does note that the film is “inspired by the greatest love story of all time,” and “inspired by” is not the same as “based on,” though either way I take issue with the rest of that sentence.

“Wuthering Heights,” which stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, is in theaters February 14, 2026. The not-a-tie-in edition of the novel arrives on shelves a bit earlier, on February 3. Surely fans will be scouring its references for hints as to what Fennell is doing. (Molly Templeton)

Well, we knew all along that it was going to be her vision, as it should be with all adaptations. If you want all the commas and dashes, you should stick to reading the actual book. Whether you end up liking it or not, what makes an adaptation interesting is the fact that it's someone else's take on the novel.

World of Reel shares the new poster.

I rarely write about movie posters, unless they’re either god awful or gloriously great that attention must be paid to them. The one just released for Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” sort of falls into the latter category. At this point, it’ll be worth seeing Fennell’s film just for the posters alone.

Of course, you also have the trailers, and it seems like with each new trailer, the conversation around this film keeps growing, both positively and negatively, people are split on it, and nobody’s seen it. Yet, the posters aren’t talked about enough.

The latest poster — below— fully embraces the kind of art you’d see in a bodice ripper, a sleazy erotic romance novel — Wycaro by Carol Sturka, for you “Pluribus” fans? — and apparently, according to some of the test reactions, the film will play exactly like those novels. Is it any coincidence that Fennell has pointedly mentioned that the title isn’t Wuthering Heights, but rather it’s “Wuthering Heights”, emphasis on the quotations. It’ll be nothing like the Emily Brontë novel, purists be damned.

It’s a Valentine’s Day release for the most toxic relationship in literature. This is not faithful, whatsoever, to the Wuthering Heights we’ve come to know, and maybe that’s a good thing — who seriously wanted the umpteenth straight retelling of this story? Absolutely nobody. Fennell got the memo.

I’m actually reminded of when Sofia Coppola turned “Marie Antoinette” into a pop cultural artifact and infused her film with rock and roll songs. Fennell has taken that cue here — her film is filmed with 35mm VistaVision cameras and the soundtrack is by Charli xcx.

Fennell, known for “Saltburn” and “Promising Young Woman”, has said Brontë’s gothic classic “cracked me open” when she read it at 14. “I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book,” Fennell said. “I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone. It’s very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private.”

In a way, purely based on the limited interviews Fennell has given about this film, it seems as though the film version Fennell has concocted out of Brontë’s novel is the one she imagined in her head as a 14-year-old girl, which means it’s unfiltered, adolescent, heightened, and no “proper” literary adaptation. It’s the version born from a teenager’s feverish encounter with a book that felt dangerous and seductive and strange. (Jordan Ruimy)

Daily Mail discusses period drama faces vs iPhone faces.

It follows the rise of 'iPhone face' with the success of Netflix's House of Guinness, set in 1860s Dublin, and the highly anticipated new Wuthering Heights adaptation, which takes place in 19th-century Yorkshire.  [...]

It's an accusation that has also plagued the upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation directed by Saltburn's Emerald Fennell.

Fans of the book have blasted the 'weird' and 'terrible' casting of Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff - and claiming that the director has 'not read' the Emily Brontë novel. (Eleanor Dye)

Her Campus has an article on 'Why were [sic] hating the new wuthering height [sic] adaptation'.

The Wall Street Journal has a list of biographies they recommend as holiday gifts, and one of them is Graham Watson’s The Invention of Charlotte Brontë.

Elizabeth Gaskell called the biography she wrote about her friend Charlotte Brontë—which helped cement the novelist’s literary fame—an “unlucky book.” Upon its publication in 1857, two years after the death of the author of “Jane Eyre,” Gaskell received angry letters, threats of libel lawsuits and outraged responses from Brontë’s father and her widower. Graham Watson’s “The Invention of Charlotte Brontë” (Pegasus, 288 pages, $29.95) explains how Gaskell came to depict her friend as a saintly yet tragic figure, an exaggerated portrayal that has remained stubbornly persistent. In her review, Kathryn Hughes called the book “a gripping testimony into the enduring problems that all biographers face in pursuit of their art.” (Barbara Spindel)

The Guardian asks writer Sophie Hannah bookish questions.

The book I came back to

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. I gave it up three times after finding it too hard-going – now it’s one of my all-time top five novels.

Haworth is one of the '9 Most Charming Small Towns in England' according to World Atlas.

Haworth

Haworth is known for both its beauty and fame. Its fame arises from its connection to the Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. The town's natural beauty is enhanced by the nearby Yorkshire Moors.

The areas close to the town offer perfect settings for exploring and enjoying relaxing walks. The Brontë sisters' historic home, which is also the birthplace of many of their novels, operates as the Brontë Parsonage Museum. It is a popular destination for literature fans.

For anyone who admires their work, this site is a must-visit. The main street of the village is well-known for its steep slopes, cobblestone charm, and historic public houses.

This street has retained much of its 19th-century character, providing a glimpse into the era of the Brontës. Take a ride back in time on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, a functional heritage steam train. It runs near Haworth and through the heart of the English countryside, offering a scenic journey.

Angelus News has an article on 'The Christian values at the heart of Jane Eyre'.