Director Emerald Fennell has been one to stir the pot in recent times, particularly due to her 2023 film Saltburn getting individuals speaking about bathwater. Her subsequent film isn’t stopping the controversy there. The filmmaker is making one of many greatest upcoming guide diversifications on the 2026 film launch schedule with a new iteration of Wuthering Heights. However now that the trailer is right here, followers of the guide are furious.
The primary Wuthering Heights trailer dropped on YouTube earlier this week, and it has already been considered over six million instances. Quite a lot of the discuss concerning the film to date is how a lot completely different it seems to be from the supply materials by Emily Brontë. Followers of the novel are most-notably calling the model “whitewashing”. Right here’s one X remark:
wuthering heights with 35 yo catherine, the whitewashed model of heathcliff. authentic music by charli xcx.emily brontë didn’t die for this shit.pic.twitter.com/zcMmq4EyOy https://t.co/s263eVNnQZSeptember 3, 2025
The protagonist of Wuthering Heights is depicted within the 1847 novel from the age of six years previous to 19 years previous, making 35-year-old Margot Robbie the improper age for the function. Nevertheless, followers are far more mad over Jacob Elordi’s casting as Heathcliff since he’s described as having darkish pores and skin tone and a “gipsy-like” look that casts him as an outsider from different characters within the novel.
As one other fan identified:
only a not so pleasant reminder: Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is explicitly darkish pores and skin and Romani, and his experiences as a person of colour affect his complete character and story as a person struggling racist abuse from his adoptive familyfuck off emerald fennellSeptember 23, 2024
When Elordi was initially forged within the function, the same response broke out on the web, and Kharmel Cochrane, the film’s casting director, has stated that “English Lit followers will not be going to be pleased” with it. Cochrane additionally claimed that “it’s only a guide” and “not based mostly on actual life,” and due to this fact shouldn’t be judged so harshly. Nevertheless, those that learn the guide are loudly discussing how casting Elordi misses some important themes within the guide.
Reminder that Wuthering Heights is NOT only a “darkish romance” however facilities on RACISM and CLASSISM. Heathcliff turned the best way he’s BECAUSE they had been RACIST and handled him like SCUMSeptember 4, 2025
The trailer additionally teases a extremely sexually suggestive movie, which has beforehand been reported when it screened. An alleged early viewers member referred to as it “aggressively provocative and tonally abrasive,” pointing to a “BDSM-tinged encounter” involving horse reins that’s current within the trailer. Some individuals are suggesting that the supply materials was shifted with the intention to promote a film that may be likened to Bridgerton.
visually fairly however fully hole & improper. this has nothing to do with wuthering heights, seems to be extra like a bodice ripper / bridgerton adaptation. idk what fennell was considering with this venture, it’s really horrendous & insulting to the supply materials. simply ew https://t.co/gIfPgNQus5September 3, 2025
Fennell wrote the screenplay, in addition to helmed the film, and Margot Robbie is a producer on the movie after she beforehand produced her different two motion pictures, Promising Younger Girl and Saltburn, via her LuckyChaps banner. Elordi was additionally the star of Saltburn earlier than boarding Wuthering Heights.
Severely although If emerald fennell wished to make an erotic interval drama i want she would have simply used an authentic story as an alternative of whitewashing wuthering heightsSeptember 3, 2025
Whereas the film is flooded with adverse feedback on the web, there’s this one to go away us considering. One X consumer shared that the title is likely to be in quotes as a result of it’s much less of a Wuthering Heights adaptation and extra of an authentic idea. Do you imagine this idea?
learn a idea that the citation marks on the “wuthering heights” title might imply that it isn’t a retelling & could also be a few lady in a later time interval studying the guide and fantasizing about her personal heathcliff. if that’s the case that’s SUCH a enjoyable ideaSeptember 5, 2025
Wuthering Heights is heading to theaters on February 13, 2026, simply in time for Valentine’s Day!