After just a handful of days, the YouTube version of the trailer has amassed more than 21 million views. While trailers go out all over the internet these days, based on that number alone, it's in good company, and interest is very high. Given that WB spent in the $80 million range to make this movie happen, that's good news. [...]For the sake of comparison, A24's "Materialists," another romantic drama, had its main trailer rack up 23 million lifetime trailer views on YouTube. It went on to make $105 million worldwide. Mind you, "Wuthering Heights" only released its new trailer several days ago. The main trailer for Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" similarly racked up 31 million lifetime views on YouTube, with "Sinners" itself ultimately becoming a smash hit, pulling in $368 million worldwide. The trailer for Fennell's latest could easily touch an identical number.Another film to look at might be "The Conjuring: Last Rites," with its main trailer earning 25 million lifetime views on YouTube. It's one of 2025's biggest hits with $494 million worldwide. [...]Warner Bros. and Fennell have declined to release much of a synopsis for their movie, but it is said to be "loosely based" on the novel.YouTube trailer views alone aren't an indicator of what a movie will eventually do at the box office, but it's sure as heck an indicator of interest. To that end, the teaser for "Wuthering Heights" racked up 11 million views. What we're seeing, in this case, is a rapidly increasing level of interest from prospective ticket buyers. It certainly doesn't hurt that this is a romantic, seemingly very horny movie that is coming out over Valentine's Day weekend. (Ryan Scott)
Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is quickly shaping up to be one of 2026’s most exciting, ambitious and creatively unapologetic literary adaptations. It’s a version of Emily Brontë’s novel that leans into everything that has made it unforgettable for nearly two centuries: the passion, the danger, the destructive love and the primal pull of its central relationship. With Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi leading the cast as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, and Charli xcx composing an original album inspired by the story, the film is designed not simply to revisit Brontë’s work, but to electrify it for a new generation.Earlier this autumn, Fennell spoke about the project publicly for the first time in Brontë’s hometown of Haworth. “I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it,” she told the BBC, recalling her teenage reaction to the book. “It’s an emotional response to something. It’s, like, primal. Sexual.” For Fennell, whose previous films Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023) showcase a bold, psychologically-charged filmmaking style, Wuthering Heights represents both a long-held dream and a profound creative risk. The director has described the 1847 novel as “so sexy”, “so horrible” and “so devastating”, and has cited it as the film she’s wanted to make the “most desperately” for years. Now, after the success of Saltburn, Fennell has finally had the freedom to choose it as her next project. “I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book,” she has admitted.That intensity shapes every artistic decision. Though retaining much of Brontë’s original dialogue in the adaptation, Fennell has been open about her decision to take liberties casting-wise — Robbie and Elordi are older than Brontë’s teenage characters. Fennell, however, saw something uncanny in both leads. Elordi, fresh off a career-defining run that began with the director’s own Saltburn and, most recently, included Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, struck Fennell immediately. On the set of Saltburn, she’s alleged to have said the actor looked “exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read”. Robbie’s Catherine, meanwhile, channels an almost mythic charisma. “She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met,” Fennell has said. Her performance promises to capture Catherine’s contradictions with force and sophistication.Supporting the film’s emotional landscape is Charli xcx, whose forthcoming album Wuthering Heights (out on 13 February 13 2026) serves as a companion piece. xcx has already released two singles , ‘House’ featuring John Cale, and a few days later, ‘Chains of Love’. Her involvement signals the project’s contemporary sensibility — a willingness to bridge Brontë’s nineteenth-century ferocity with the urgent, emotionally-charged world of modern pop. But rather than updating the story, the music amplifies it, reinforcing the passion, fire and pulse Fennell sees in the original text.Ultimately, what sets this Wuthering Heights apart is its clarity of purpose. Fennell is making a film driven by emotion — primal, sensual and unsettling. It is a Wuthering Heights that embraces complexity rather than avoiding it. One that sees the novel not as a fragile artifact, but as a living, breathing, overwhelming force. The trailer is full of longing stares, sexual tension and tightened corsets, exploring a story of obsessive love in an adaptation that’s as steamy as it is artistic. And it’s no better proven than in the film’s costume design, which sees Robbie in a white, glittery wedding dress, centuries ahead of its time. Highlighting Fennell’s distinctive aesthetic, it’s less about period accuracy and more about creating a heightened, visually-intoxicating world.The trailer, then, has only intensified the debate circling the film months ahead of its release. Viewers remain divided over the casting and the adaptation’s unapologetic eroticism. Marketed as “a bold and original imagining of one of the greatest love stories of all time”, the argument rages on: was Wuthering Heights ever a love story to begin with? Either way, with its powerhouse cast, visionary director, impressive set design and an album that promises to become a cultural moment in its own right, Wuthering Heights is poised to redefine what a classic adaptation can be. It is ready to be experienced passionately, provocatively and without apology on 13 February next year. (Flore Boitel)
If you’re unfamiliar with British moorland, I urge you to listen to Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush to get into the right mood, and then dive into these atmospheric classics. The moors really are “wily” and “windy,” with vast open spaces, craggy rocks and plenty of thick heather in which you could easily hide a body…. [...]Emily Brontë, Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights is as weird, esoteric, experimental and challenging now as it was at publication in 1847. Structured like a conch shell, with stories with stories, shifting perspectives and unreliable narrators, Wuthering Heights is a book that keeps readers on their toes and demands attention. If this makes it sound like hard work, I’m doing it a disservice – it’s an absolute riot to read.Originally published under an androgynous pseudonym, Ellis Bell, it was controversial from the get-go due to its subject matter which includes mental crises, brutal domestic violence, the subjugation of women, the dangers of childbirth, religion and the rigid Victorian class system. With the furore surrounding the recent trailer for Emerald Fennel’s reimagined movie adaptation, it’s clear this is still a story with the power to shock and surprise.Charlotte Brontë, Jane EyreThe Brontës are well represented here. All three of the Brontë sisters that made it to adulthood became writers, and all three set their stories in the Yorkshire of their upbringing. As a result, a swathe of land in the North of England is known (almost) officially as Brontë Country.Jane Eyre bristles with social criticism, sharp observations and an introspective first person narrative that still feels fresh and bold. Orphaned Jane grapples with her identity and sense of belonging, finally escaping her abusive childhood through employment. She becomes governess at Thornfield Hall, a gloomy, isolated and gothic manor house large enough to have multiple apparently disused rooms and, of course, a deeply disturbed character secreted on one of the upper floors.It was billed as a romance, and there is dark passion at its heart, but it is also a mystery, a character study, and a sly manifesto for social change and personal growth. (Holly Seddon)
1. Jane EyreIf you love Jane Austen adaptations, the 2011 version of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre will be an instant favorite. The story centers on Jane, an orphan abused by her aunt and later sent to the harsh Lowood School. As an adult, she becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls for her employer, the mysterious Edward Rochester. But when she uncovers a dark secret, she’s forced to flee—though she may not be able to stay away for long.2. Wuthering HeightsBefore Emerald Fennell’s upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation drops, revisit the iconic ’90s version starring Ralph Fiennes as the brooding Heathcliff. If you don’t know the plot of Emily Brontë’s famous story, it follows an orphan, Heathcliff, after he is adopted into the wealthy Earnshaw family. He moves into their estate and strikes up a strong bond with his foster sister, Cathy. Cathy gives in to societal pressures and marries Edgar Linton, a man of higher standing. But Heathcliff vows to get her back, no matter what. (Lauren Blue)
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