What’s Going On With Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights Film?
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2 weeks ago
Here's everything we know so far
Last summer, Saltburn fans were elated to hear Emerald Fennell is working on her third project: an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights, starring none other than fan favourite Jacob Elordi in the starring role opposite fellow Aussie Margot Robbie. But these castings along with leaked imagery from set sparked controversy pretty swiftly: is this a faithful adaptation of Emily Brontë’s beloved story, or is Fennell about to stomp all over it? With a teaser trailer finally here – soundtracked by Charli XCX, no less – here’s what you need to know.
Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights: Plot, Cast, Release Date
Our story begins on Friday 12 July, when Saltburn director Emerald Fennell posted an intriguing image on X with no caption: an illustration of two skeletons by Katie Buckley, accompanied by the words ‘be with me always – take any form – drive me mad’, a quote from Emily Brontë’s famous novel. In the middle is the title ‘Wuthering Heights’. At the bottom, ‘a film by Emerald Fennell’ is written. That confirms it, then: Fennell’s next feature will be an adaptation of Brontë’s best known novel, Wuthering Heights.
— Emerald Fennell (@emeraldfennell) July 12, 2024
Like Saltburn (2023) and Promising Young Woman (2020), Wuthering Heights is a tale of deception and retaliation, albeit with a very different backdrop.
Being based on the classic novel, we already know the gist of the story. Wuthering Heights is an intergenerational tome, mainly focussing on Heathcliff and his paramour Catherine Earnshaw on a remote moorland farmhouse called Wuthering Heights. However, taking a look at the steamy teaser trailer, it seems Fennell’s version of the story will be a sexual tension-filled revamp. Take a look below.
Soundtracked by Charli XCX’s 2024 Brat hit ‘Everything is romantic’, the teaser is chock-full of suggestive close-ups, from Catherine’s (Robbie) flushed cheeks, to worn hands kneading bread, a moving back beaded with sweat, fingers bursting egg yolks, Catherine’s bosom heaving, fingers in mouths…
Fennell is far from the first filmmaker to adapt Brontë’s text for the screen: the first adaptation was created as long ago as 1920 as a silent film, while the most recent was Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson. However we think it’s safe to say Fennell’s will be the sexiest interpretation yet. We’re also told this isn’t the last we will hear from Charli XCX: the pop star is reportedly contributing original songs to the flick, with Fennell’s long-term collaborator Anthony Willis spearheading the score.
Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw in the Wuthering Heights teaser trailer. (Warner Bros/YouTube)
The teaser opens in the bleak misty countryside – presumably Wuthering Heights itself in the Yorkshire Dales. After these close-ups, we flash through Catherine’s life, featuring her husband Edgar (Shazad Latif), her wind-swept wedding dress, parties, the younger versions of Catherine (Charlotte Mellington) and Heathcliff (Owen Cooper) and Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver) crawling along the ground with her tongue out, demon-like.
‘I can follow you like a dog to the end of the world,’ Heathcliff tells Catherine in one moment. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ in another.
Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in the Wuthering Heights teaser trailer. (Warner Bros/YouTube)
Tracing the events of 30 years, Heathcliff begins the original story as an adopted son of the wealthy Earnshaw family, with patriarch Mr Earnshaw raising Heathcliff as his own alongside his biological children Hindley and Catherine. Hindley hates Heathcliff while Catherine grows to love him, the pair becoming inseparable.
But when Mr Earnshaw dies, Hindley seizes his chance to enact revenge on the boy who stole his father’s love, reducing Heathcliff’s status to a servant forced to work in the fields. While Catherine and Heathcliff still love each other, she eventually decides to marry local wealthier man Edgar, prompting Heathcliff to run away. Three years later, Heathcliff returns to the estate, rich and educated, to enact his own vengeance on the families he believes ruined his life.
We think Fennell’s film with follow this main plot – just with much more sexual frustration thrown in.
Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw in the Wuthering Heights teaser trailer. (Warner Bros/YouTube)
Who Will Star?
Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie will star in Wuthering Heights, snapping up the central roles of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw respectively. Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment (founded with her husband Tom Ackerley) is also on board behind the scenes, having previously produced both Promising Young Woman and Saltburn.
They will be joined by younger versions of themselves: Adolescence star Owen Cooper as a young Heathcliff, with Charlotte Mellington as teenage Cathy, hot off her run as Lavender in the West End’s Matilda the Musical. The younger generation is wrapped up with Vy Nguyen, who will star as the young Nelly Dean, who serves as the novel’s main narrator. It’s each youngster’s film debut.
Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff and Charlotte Mellington as young Cathy in the Wuthering Heights teaser trailer. (Warner Bros/YouTube)
Cooper was famously snapped up by Adolescence director Philip Barantini to star as a 13-year-old accused of murder, despite Cooper’s lack of experience in front of the camera. Cooper’s intricate performance has been praised by audiences and critics alike, and clearly caught the attention of the Wuthering Heights production team: he was cast as young Heathcliff just a fortnight before Adolescence landed on Netflix.
Elsewhere in the cast, Elordi is reunited with his Saltburn co-star Alison Oliver, who will play Isabella Linton. She is joined by Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton, and Hong Chau as the older Nelly Dean.
Rounding out the cast are Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell, though we are not clear on their roles just yet. Elsewhere our money is on a cameo from Carey Mulligan who has starred in both of Fennell’s films to date: as Cassie, the protagonist of Promising Young Woman (2020); and as Pamela in Saltburn, Elspeth’s friend, often referred to as ‘Poor Dear Pamela’.
After the success of Saltburn, we’d love to see the return of more of that film’s stars alongside Elordi and Oliver. With Wuthering Heights being very British, perhaps we will see the return of Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant or Archie Madekwe – or even Irish star Barry Keoghan.
This puts the full Wuthering Heights cast list so far as follows:
- Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw
- Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff
- Charlotte Mellington as young Cathy
- Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff
- Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton
- Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton
- Hong Chau as Nelly Dean
- Vy Nguyen as young Nelly Dean
- Martin Clunes
- Ewan Mitchell
What’s The Controversy?
It’s safe to say fans of Bronte’s classic novel aren’t exactly pleased with Fennell’s vision so far, with a number of issues cropping up. For starters, the very-British protagonists are being portrayed by two Aussie stars, with Cathy, who is around 18 years old in the story, portrayed by 34-year-old Robbie.
Elordi, meanwhile, doesn’t fit Bronte’s description of Heathcliff as ‘dark-skinned’, with people interpreting this across time as an indication Heathcliff is not white. Lockwood describes Heathcliff as ‘a little Lascar [a term for someone of Indian or South East Asian descent], or an American or Spanish castaway’, indicating he has mixed-race or even South Asian origins, fitting with his status as a foundling in Liverpool, which was a major port in the transatlantic slave trade. The racial ambiguity is key to Heathcliff’s character arc: he is othered throughout the novel, and mistreated by characters on the basis of his skin tone.
Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in the Wuthering Heights teaser trailer. (Warner Bros/YouTube)
In casting Elordi, then, Fennell has been accused of white washing. Elordi is a white Australian man with Basque heritage and a slightly olive skin tone. Elsewhere in the cast, Latif is part Pakistani and plays the light-skinned, racist Edgar, while Vietnamese Chau plays prejudiced housekeeper Nelly, with fans questioning why the production’s only actors of colour are in antagonist roles.
And then there’s the wedding dress. Robbie was spotted on set in March 2025 in a voluminous, glittery wedding gown with a gauzy veil, tiara and bridal bouquet of roses. The historians emerged from the woodwork in droves: white wedding dresses weren’t popular until decades after the events of the novel (which was published in 1847), glitter wasn’t invented until 1934, the cut is a bit Princess Diana, and Catherine should have brown hair, not Robbie’s signature blonde.
Nitpicking? Perhaps. A hill to die on? It seems so for many fans. The comments of the teaser trailer are flooded with Brontë fans bemoaning Fennell’s work, with statements ranging from ‘this is absolutely mortifying to look at’ and ‘I hated every second of this trailer’ to ‘this looks as horrendous as we all expected’.
But Fennell also has a cult following, and there are just as many comments gushing about her work. ‘This is visually beautiful […] I’m really excited,’ one fan writes. ‘Masterpiece,’ another comments, another adding ‘Looks fantastic, can’t wait to see it’.
Our favourite fan response? ‘Fifty Shades of Heathcliff,’ one fan quips. Too right…
Fennell on the set of Saltburn with Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. © Prime Video
Who Is Emerald Fennell?
British actor turned filmmaker, you might recognise Emerald Fennell from the likes of The Danish Girl, Call the Midwife, and portraying Camilla Parker-Bowles in Netflix’s The Crown. Most recently, though, she has risen to fame for her writing: she was the showrunner for season two of Killing Eve, and penned the book for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 2021 musical adaptation of Cinderella, while she made her feature film directorial debut in 2020 with Promising Young Woman starring Carey Mulligan. In 2023, her much-anticipated sophomore movie was Saltburn which, of course, caused quite a stir, especially among families watching the flick over ‘twixmas.
Flashing back to Fennell’s childhood, she is the daughter of jewellery designer Theo Fennell and author Louise Fennell. Her sister, Coco Fennell, is a fashion designer, while Emerald’s 18th birthday party was documented in Tatler with the likes of Poppy Delevigne, Lady Alexandra Gordon Lennox and Alice Rugge-Price on the guestlist. She attended Marlborough College before reading English at the University of Oxford where she acted in university plays and was scouted by a talent agent, thus kicking off her acting career.
Release Date
Warner Bros is set to release Wuthering Heights on 13 February 2026 – following the trend set by Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy on Valentine’s Day 2025.
