A feverish first look at a classic reborn
Warner Bros. dropped the first trailer for Wuthering Heights on September 3, 2025, and it wastes no time announcing Emerald Fennell’s intentions. The imagery is all storm, skin, and moorland menace—less museum piece, more live wire. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi play the doomed pair at the center of Emily Brontë’s tale, with the teaser leaning into breathless intimacy and sharp-edged obsession. One line cuts through the wind like a dare: “I can follow you like a dog to the end of the world.”
Fennell directs from her own screenplay, and the tone feels unmistakably hers—provocative, sensual, and unafraid of messy desire. Where many adaptations smooth the novel’s roughness, this one seems to rub it in. The trailer flashes candlelit rooms and battered fields, bodies pressed close and then flung apart, a romance that looks more like a fever breaking than a valentine.
The film arrives in theaters February 13, 2026—prime Valentine’s Day weekend—with international releases beginning February 11. It’s a savvy date for a story that is romantic only if you define romance as ruin. Fennell seems happy to underline the danger in Brontë’s book, a love story that devours more than it nourishes.
This adaptation is produced by an alliance that knows how to mount star-driven event cinema. It’s a Lie Still & LuckyChap Entertainment Production for Warner Bros. Pictures, with MRC on board. Fennell produces alongside Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Josey McNamara and Robbie; Sara Desmond and Oscar nominee Tom Ackerley executive produce. LuckyChap, the outfit behind I, Tonya and Barbie, has built a reputation for pairing big-audience plays with a director’s sharp point of view, and the trailer suggests the same here.
What the trailer promises—and what it leaves unsaid
Emily Brontë’s novel, published in 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell, is a strange beast: a Gothic love story that doubles as a study of cruelty, grief, and class. Most screen versions trim its multi-generational sprawl to focus on the inferno between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. This teaser looks to do the same—zeroing in on the pair’s push-pull dynamic, the moors as both setting and accomplice.
Robbie, an Oscar and BAFTA nominee, has been on a run of scale and swagger—from the candy-colored pop of Barbie to the caustic glitter of Babylon. She looks dialed in here, playing Catherine with a quicksilver mix of yearning and bite. Elordi, a BAFTA nominee who teamed with Fennell on Saltburn and played Elvis Presley in Priscilla, brings a coiled physicality suited to Heathcliff’s rage and magnetism. Their screen chemistry is the trailer’s engine—hot, toxic, and complicated.
The ensemble adds texture. Oscar nominee Hong Chau joins the cast, as do Shazad Latif and Alison Oliver, who last worked with Fennell on Saltburn. BAFTA winner Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell round out a lineup that blends prestige, edge, and fresh faces. The teaser keeps most roles under wraps, which fits the film’s secretive, skin-prickling vibe.
Fennell’s earlier work—Promising Young Woman and Saltburn—thrived on taboo-breaking desire, social gamesmanship, and a taste for the baroque. Those signatures are in the cut here: bodies framed like weapons, glances that do more harm than any slap, settings that mirror the characters’ inner storms. Don’t expect a soft-focus period piece. Expect sharp teeth and muddy boots.
For readers and Brontë purists, the question is always the same: how much of the book survives the screen? The trailer hints at a streamlined take that prizes mood over meticulous plotting. That’s not a knock. Wuthering Heights lives and dies by feeling—resentment, longing, humiliation, and the kind of love that leaves marks. Film can bottle that faster than a chapter can. Fennell is betting it will.
Strategically, the Valentine’s frame positions the film as counterprogramming: something for audiences who want romance with danger instead of comfort. Adult-skewing dramas have found fresh oxygen lately when they come with a hook and a conversation attached. Saltburn became a talking point; Challengers did the same in the sports-romance lane. A Brontë adaptation with heat and star wattage fits that pattern.
Rating details weren’t included with the trailer. Given the sensual tone and flashes of violence, an adult rating wouldn’t surprise, but we’ll wait for the official call. Runtime and full character breakdowns are also still under wraps. Expect more breadcrumbs—a longer trailer, track reveals, maybe a featurette—before year’s end.
The production pedigree is worth a closer look. LuckyChap’s trio—Robbie, Ackerley, and McNamara—has spent years building projects that aim for cultural noise as much as ticket sales. MRC has backed awards-season lightning rods and mid-budget bets that travel. Warner Bros., fresh off turning Barbie into a global event, knows how to market a big-screen conversation starter. The pieces are aligned for this to be a moment, not just a movie.
Then there’s the legacy. Wuthering Heights has been adapted often: William Wyler’s 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon burned a romantic imprint into the public imagination; the 1992 version with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes kept the flame alive; Andrea Arnold’s 2011 take stripped the story back to wind, mud, and faces. Each era finds its angle. Fennell’s looks set to be hunger and consequence—the ache, the shame, and the thrill of wanting what hurts you.
What’s next? With the trailer out, eyes will turn to the fall festival circuit for any early sneak peeks and to awards chatter about the craft team once credits land. For now, the signal is clear. This Wuthering Heights isn’t looking to soothe. It’s aiming to unsettle—romance as a bruise you press because you can’t help yourself.
Key details at a glance:
- Trailer release: September 3, 2025
- US theatrical release: February 13, 2026
- International rollout: beginning February 11, 2026
- Writer-director: Emerald Fennell
- Lead cast: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi
- Supporting cast: Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes, Ewan Mitchell
- Producers: Emerald Fennell, Josey McNamara, Margot Robbie
- Executive producers: Sara Desmond, Tom Ackerley
- Production: A Lie Still & LuckyChap Entertainment Production in association with MRC
- Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
However you slice it—literary adaptation, star vehicle, auteur provocation—the first look lands with intent. The moors aren’t just scenery here. They’re a warning sign.
