A dark Valentine: What we know about the 2026 Wuthering Heights
Circle February 13, 2026. That’s when Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights is due to hit cinemas, led by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Gothic romance opening on Valentine’s weekend? That’s a statement. It hints at a sweeping, bruising love story aimed squarely at a broad audience, not just literature students and costume-drama fans.
Here’s the headline: Fennell is in the director’s chair, Robbie and Elordi are set to star, and the film is locked to a mid-February 2026 date. Beyond that, the production is keeping things close. No official roles have been announced for the leads, no filming start has been confirmed, and there’s no trailer on the horizon yet. Trade listings do the heavy lifting for now, while the creative team holds the finer points back.
Why all the buzz without much to look at? Fennell’s track record. She won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman, then sparked a culture-wide conversation with Saltburn. She’s drawn to messy desire, power games, and the fallout they leave behind—exactly the kind of emotional storm that drives Emily Brontë’s novel. Pair that with Robbie, fresh off Barbie’s global juggernaut and a run of savvy producing choices, and Elordi, who has moved from Euphoria breakout to sharp turns in Priscilla and Saltburn, and you’ve got a modern, high-voltage pairing positioned for a classic.
What does this mean for Brontë’s story? The original novel is a fever dream of obsession on the Yorkshire moors—wild love, class anxiety, revenge, and the ache of people who don’t fit where life puts them. Film and TV have tried to pin it down for decades: the 1939 William Wyler version with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, the 1992 adaptation with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, and Andrea Arnold’s 2011 take that leaned into raw, windswept realism. Each one chose its path—romance, tragedy, grit. Fennell tends to go for human desire without a safety net. Expect sharp edges.
There’s also the release-date play. A Valentine’s corridor slot is usually reserved for crowd-pleaser romances or big counter-programming. Wuthering Heights can be both. It’s romance, but it’s also a howl. If the film leans into its wilder instincts, it could be the kind of date-movie-that-isn’t—a night out that starts with flowers and ends with a spirited debate about who was right, who was wrong, and whether anyone in this story is truly good.
Let’s be clear about one thing: a specific report claiming fresh production quotes and breathless praise hasn’t surfaced in any verified public sources. No confirmed new remarks from Jacob Elordi are out there detailing the shoot or calling the adaptation anything at all. If that changes, and the team goes on the record, that’s the update worth watching.
Fennell’s lens, the cast’s draw, and the big open questions
Fennell likes control—of tone, of image, of how a character’s choices twist the knife. That makes her an intriguing fit for Brontë’s landscape, where love curdles into vengeance and class lines bruise every decision. She doesn’t do tidy. If she keeps the story period-set, expect tactile detail and psychological bite. If she shifts timelines, expect a precise, modern frame that still feels haunted by the moors.
Robbie and Elordi bring heat and contrast. Robbie can swing from sunny charm to flint in a single scene; Elordi has a looming presence and a knack for bottled-up intensity. Whether they play Catherine and Heathcliff or a reconfigured set of leads, the dynamic is built for crackle. Their recent projects also bring a split audience together—Robbie bringing in mainstream moviegoers, Elordi pulling both prestige-curious viewers and younger fans who discovered him on streaming.
What we still don’t know matters. Is the film sticking to the full generational sweep of the novel or focusing tight on the central romance and its fallout? Will it track the second generation at all? What’s the rating target? Who’s the cinematographer—does the camera go wide and wind-torn, or does it stay close, claustrophobic, and breath-on-glass intimate? These choices will define whether this is a grand, windswept tragedy or a barbed, modern-feeling chamber piece wearing period clothes.
The adaptation history offers clues about the spectrum. Wyler’s classic turned the novel into a tragic romance and stopped early in the book. Arnold’s version stripped out ornament and leaned into the elements. A Fennell take could plant its flag somewhere new: a lush production surface with a biting undercurrent about class, ownership, and the cost of desire. She’s comfortable making an audience complicit. Heathcliff and Catherine aren’t designed to be easy company—Fennell’s films don’t flinch from that.
Industry-wise, a February 2026 launch suggests a steady ramp through 2025: casting rounds, location reveals, and first-look images before a late-year teaser. Given the source material, the campaign almost writes itself—fog, wind, a doorway thrown open, two figures who can’t quit each other even when they should. If the film lands on the awards radar, calendar-watchers will clock it as the kind of early-year release that can reheat in the fall with festivals and craft-category pushes, especially for design, costumes, and score.
Here’s a quick, no-nonsense snapshot of what’s on the record so far:
- Title: Wuthering Heights (working/official title as listed in trade roundups).
- Director: Emerald Fennell.
- Lead cast: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi.
- Release date: February 13, 2026.
- Status: Official details beyond the date and leads are under wraps; no verified new quotes or production updates have been published.
There’s also the question of scale. Wuthering Heights can be made lean or lavish. If the production leans into the elements—mud, stone, and weather—you get a story where the land presses on the characters like fate. If it goes lavish, the contrast between wealthy interiors and rough moors can turn every room into a battleground. Either way, the setting isn’t background noise; it’s an argument the characters can’t win.
For readers of the novel, the casting beyond the leads will be telling: Hindley, Edgar Linton, Isabella, Nelly Dean, Hareton, Cathy Linton. Each one reshapes the moral geometry. Nelly, especially, can swing between warm witness and unreliable narrator. Get that right and the whole house creaks in the right way.
And yes, the moors matter. They’re not just windy hills. They’re the story’s pressure system. However Fennell chooses to shoot them—wide and merciless or close and suffocating—will say everything about how she reads the book: doomed lovers swallowed by nature, or people who make their own storms and then live inside them.
So, where does that leave us today? With a firm date, an A-list pairing, and a director who thrives on moral friction. That’s enough to make this one of 2026’s most watched literary adaptations before a single frame is public. Keep an eye out for casting rounds and the first stills. Once we see how the costumes fall, how the wind looks, and whether the camera leans into tenderness or glass-cutting wit, we’ll know what kind of heartbreak we’re in for.