Emerald Fennell's 'Wuthering Heights' Will Arrive in Theaters in February 2026
Jacob Elordi as Felix in 'Saltburn'
Amazon
Director Emerald Fennell is poised to return to her period drama roots with her next project, an adaptation of the classic Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights, and if you think the current film discourse surrounding Christopher Nolan's forthcoming adaptation of The Odyssey is wild, well, it seems safe to assume we haven't seen anything yet.
Fenell is, let's just say, something of a controversial director, whose previous feature films (Promising Young Woman and Saltburn) have sparked no small amount of debate both among critics and the general public. Her established interests in boundary-breaking female characters and class tensions make her a natural fit to tackle this often unhinged story, but her decision to set the release of this film --- which will adapt one of the most famous doomed romances of all time ---- over a Valentine's Day weekend is probably par for the course when it comes to what we ought to expect going forward.
Published by Brontë under the pseudonym Ellis Bell about a year before her death, Wuthering Heights follows the story of the dysfunctional and frequently destructive relationship between two families: The Earnshaws and the Lintons. The relationship between Earnshaw's daughter Catherine and Heathcliff, an orphan the family adopted at a young age, is the emotional linchpin around which the story's larger plot turns, and it's one of the most obsessive, romantic, tragic, and downright toxic love stories in all of literature.
As many of you have likely already heard Fennell's Wuthering Heights will star Margot Robbie (Barbie) as Catherine and Jacob Elordi (Euphoria) as Heathcliff, a pairing that sparked no small bit of commentary when it was announced. From complaints that the stars don't particularly resemble the descriptions of the characters from the novel to worries that Elordi's casting, specifically, means that Fennell won't address the ideas about Heathcliff's mixed-race background that have become prevalent in recent scholarship.
Alongside Robbie and Elordi, the film has apparently found the rest of its main cast. According to Deadline, Hong Chau (The Night Agent), Shazad Latif (The Pursuit of Love), and Elordi's Saltburn co-star Alison Oliver will round out the rest of Bronte's main characters. Chau will reportedly play Nelly Dean, the story's primary narrator and a servant to the Earnshaw and Linton families. Latif is set to take on the role of Edgar Linton, the wealthy aristocrat who marries Cathy, while Oliver plays his sister Isabella Linton, who ultimately becomes Heathcliff's wife. (Everything about every relationship in this story is messy, is what I'm saying.)
The film will be written, directed, and produced by Fennell. MRC, the studio behind Saltburn, has tapped Robbie's LuckyChap Entertainment to produce, with filming set to begin in the U.K. in 2025.
Wuthering Heights will premiere in theaters on Friday, February 13, 2026.
