A new trailer has been released for Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.
Written by Emily Brontë and published in 1847, the gothic novel follows two families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, in 1700s West Yorkshire, England, whose lives are upended after the Earnshaws adopt a mysterious orphan named Heathcliff.
The story has been adapted to film and television screens numerous times over the years, with some notable examples including the 1939 version directed by William Wyler and starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, which was nominated for Best Picture, a two-part TV miniseries version starring Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley in 2009, and a 2011 feature starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson.
Now, along with the first trailer released back in September, which notably had eroticized imagery, the release of this new trailer, which includes Charli XCX’s new song Chains of Love from her upcoming album, confirms Fennell’s aims to focus her version around amplifying the obsessive star-crossed relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.
While there has been some criticism towards this angle, Fennell argued that this intensity matches the experience she had when she first read the book:
“I’ve been obsessed…I’ve been driven mad by this book. I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it’s an emotional response to something. It’s, like, primal, sexual…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, I think.”
This is not the only controversy the project has encountered, as fans of the book earlier criticized the casting of Robbie and Elordi in the lead roles, with the former being considered too old and the latter not matching Heathcliff’s literary description of having a darker complexion and possibly Romani roots. The film’s casting director, Kharmel Cochrane, has addressed the complaints, saying the filmmakers wanted to put their own spin on the story.
The film will be produced by Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment, her third collaboration with Fennell. Along with Robbie and Elordi, the cast also includes Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell.
Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights is set for release in theaters on February 13, 2026.
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