Wuthering Heights waltzed to $150 million

Variety shares the weekend's box office.

This weekend at the global box office was the tale of two holdovers as “Wuthering Heights” waltzed to $150 million while “GOAT” hit the $100 million mark.

Director Emerald Fennell’s gothic romantic drama “Wuthering Heights,” which ceded the top spot in North America to “GOAT,” was No. 1 at the international box office with $26.3 million from 76 markets. In a theatrical surprise, the R-rated film has been a bigger draw overseas with ticket sales having climbed to $91.7 million to date. Top foreign territories include the United Kingdom with $22.5 million, Italy with $9.4 million and Australia with $8.3 million. So far, “Wuthering Heights” has grossed $151.7 million worldwide against an $80 million production budget. (Rebecca Rubin)

A columnist from The Daily Tar Heel discusses book Wuthering Heights 2026 in particular and adaptations in general.

Last weekend on Valentine's Day, I sat down at the movie theater with my three best friends from home, celebrating the holiday the best way I saw fit: watching the new “'Wuthering Heights' ” film. I was glued to the screen the moment the scene opened with groaning sounds, and uncontrollable tears fell down my face as the credits rolled almost 2.5 hours later.

So it was much to my surprise when I opened the Letterboxd app once back at home to see the movie only had 2.8/5 stars and a plethora of negative reviews, all with much the same sentiment: Emily Brontë would be disappointed by Emerald Fennell ’s portrayal of her story. [...]

While I didn’t feel this strongly on the topic of titles before I watched “'Wuthering Heights,'” I think movies need to be enjoyed for their simple craft and not whether or not they are exactly like the original source. And frankly, not everyone reads every book ever written. I don’t want to love a movie so deeply and be met with contorted faces and silent judgment, just because I didn’t read the book and notice every difference between the two.

It’s inevitable that a screen adaptation will not maintain every single plot point of its original book, but directors can make a simple fix to avoid total hatred of their productions: just change the name. (Rebecca Savidge)

A contributor to Mamamia argues the case for so-called 'toxic love stories'.

Firstly, let's quickly address whether Wuthering Heights could have existed in its original form — it certainly could, and predictably will again (I foresee a historical limited series adaptation asap), but that doesn't mean Fenell's vision shouldn't have a right to exist either.

But let's face it, would the dating standards of 1847 translate to today? I'd hazard a guess that 2026 audiences wouldn't particularly enjoy watching their internet boyfriend, Jacob Elordi, in his full monstrous glory as Heathcliff, a character who didn't simply use his wife Isabella to torment Cathy, but physically and emotionally abused her in the novel… and murdered her dog.

Audiences certainly wouldn't root for him and Margot Robbie's Catherine after enduring such horrific scenes.

Fennell's story is still a romance — it's just not the type we're used to seeing play out.

For one thing, Heathcliff and Catherine are both largely terrible people. That's just a fact. In many ways, they do deserve each other — if anything, to keep them away from everyone else.

This is the kind of toxic love story that I, personally, can't get enough of. And these kinds of anti-love stories have a place in pop culture — even if they don't fit neatly into the romance box. (Tara Watson)

While Feminism in India argues that 'We Don’t Need Another Romantic Heathcliff: Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” And The Aestheticisation Of Male Violence'.

Ultimately, Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” feels like a ‘cynical co-option‘ of a radical text. The film reaches for mature emotional complexity but lands instead on the simplistic, all-consuming feelings of teenage infatuation. By reducing Brontë’s examination of class structures and racial othering to surface-level eroticism, it sidesteps the very discomfort the novel was designed to elicit.

The film’s poster famously puts the title in quotation marks, perhaps signalling Fennell’s awareness that this is a limited interpretation rather than a faithful adaptation. Yet, in a world where elite male violence is still routinely excused as complicated behaviour, we do not need another “Wuthering Heights” that makes abuse look like a high-fashion editorial. We need adaptations that refuse to make the destruction of human beings look beautiful. We need art that recognises that when violence is aestheticised without political clarity, it ceases to be a critique and becomes an enablement.

Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”, for all its vibrant visuals and maximalist noise, remains a missed opportunity to address the very real and ugly ghosts of our present moment. (Aryaa Singh)

Some more reviews of the film:

The State Hornet gives it 5.5/10:

Fennell did what she set out to do when making this film. She wanted to make a version of “Wuthering Heights” that reflected what she remembered from reading it for the first time as a teen.

In that regard, this film succeeds as a heart-racing, sweeping dark romance. By thinking about this film as just that, it’s pretty successful. The film depicts the lure and attraction of this doomed romance, even if it’s a bit overplayed. However, to achieve this, it becomes far less interesting than the original novel to the point of making viewers wonder why the film is called “Wuthering Heights” in the first place. (Kristopher Caalim)

The Johns Hopkins News-Letter:

Not every film needs to be deep or meaningful, but it would be nice if filmmakers could respect their audience with subtlety and take a commentary further than the superficial every now and again. Fennell instead squandered a golden opportunity to bridge the divide between literature snobs and casual romance enjoyers. I’ll get off my soapbox now, but this movie was not “‘porn’ for women.” It was porn for Emerald Fennell.

Was I successfully rage baited by this “adaptation”? Yes. But Fennell’s superficiality and mishandling of her source’s thematic elements in favor of flashy aesthetics is simply a symptom of a much more serious disease: It is art in the age of TikTok.

TLDR: In the immortalized words of bk on Letterboxd, “Emerald Fennell to film is what Colleen Hoover is to literature.” (Uma Nathan)

The Tulane Hullabaloo:

Favoring excess over austerity, Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” has a different spirit than Brontë’s novel. The novel’s narrator, Lockwood, says, “They [Catherine and Heathcliff] are afraid of nothing.” But they might be afraid of this film. It is a ghost of their story. (Jason Mulvihill)

1.5 stars out of 5 from Cineralia (in Spanish):

En definitiva, esta versión de Cumbres borrascosas parece realizada para los que disfrutaron de Barbie. Los que busquen verdadera emoción no la encontrarán aquí. (Julio Vallejo) (Translation)

A reader has written to In Common to say they didn't like the film.

A contributor to Her Campus gives Wuthering Heights, the novel, a 10/10. Manchester Evening News and others recommend a trip to Swaledale, a filming location for Wuthering Heights 2026. Cinema Blend reports that on social media, 'Wuthering Heights Fans Have Messages For The Movie Newbies Who Are Finding Out Heathcliff And Cathy Are 'Bad People''. The Brontës' love of pets on AnneBrontë.org.