The first trailer for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, released two days ago, frames the 1847 gothic novel in visibly sexual terms, featuring lingering shots of desire and imagery that reviewers have described as overtly erotic.
The short clip stars Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, with Adolescence actor Owen Cooper also in the principal cast. The footage includes a topless Elordi working outdoors, suggestive sequences of bread being kneaded and broken eggs handled in close-up, corsets being tightened and prolonged, brooding views of the Yorkshire moors. Fennell, whose previous films include Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, directed the project and is credited among the producers.
The trailer’s visual language emphasizes bodily longing and suppressed desire more explicitly than many past screen versions of Brontë’s novel, which has traditionally been presented as a bleak and romantic gothic tale of obsession and revenge. Scenes in the clip pivot on tactile details and charged looks between the central characters, suggesting that Fennell’s interpretation foregrounds eroticism alongside the original’s emotional extremity.
Fennell won an Academy Award for best original screenplay in 2021 for Promising Young Woman and drew widespread attention for Saltburn, a 2023 film noted for its provocative imagery and viral moments involving bathtubs and graveyards. Critics and viewers who saw Saltburn have observed stylistic continuities in the Wuthering Heights trailer, particularly an appetite for heightened, stylized sensuality.
Warner Bros. is among the companies attached to the production. The casting of Robbie, best known most recently for her role in Barbie, as Catherine and Elordi, whose performance in Saltburn drew notice, as Heathcliff positions the film to attract mainstream attention while courting controversy for its aesthetic choices.
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847, has been adapted many times for stage, film and television. The novel centers on the destructive, often violent relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, whose outsider status and obsessive love drive much of the plot. Earlier screen adaptations have varied in faithfulness to Brontë’s text and in their emphasis on the novel’s gothic elements; the new trailer signals that Fennell’s version will place intimacy and sexual tension at the forefront.
The trailer’s release has prompted conversation about adaptation choices, with observers noting the degree to which the footage departs from some readers’ expectations of Brontë’s work. The film’s production timeline and full release date have not been detailed in the trailer; further promotional material and reviews closer to the film’s release will offer more information on tone, narrative scope and how faithfully the screenplay adheres to the novel.
Producers and the creative team have not released a full synopsis beyond promotional materials accompanying the trailer. Audiences and critics will be watching for how Fennell balances the source material’s psychological intensity with the explicit visual approach signaled by the clip, and how that balance affects reception among viewers familiar with Brontë’s canonical text.