Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi To Lead Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights Adaptation?

Oscar-nominated actress Margot Robbie is all set to pair up with Jacob Elordi for her next with director Emerald Fennell. According to Deadline Exclusive, the film will be an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, shaping up to be a star-studded project with Margot and the BAFTA-nominated actor leading the cast. While Margot Robbie will feature as Catherine Earnshaw, a capricious young woman, Elordi will portray Heathcliff, an infamous romantic hero from Western literature.

Besides starring, Margot will also produce the film via LuckyChap, marking the production house’s third collaboration with Fennell after Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. Additionally, MRC will also produce the film. Currently in the pre-production stage, the makers are eyeing a 2025 shoot in the UK. Fennell is set to write, direct and produce the film.

Originally published in 1847, the novel is regarded as a literary classic that explores the tumultuous relationships between two families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons. It charts the challenging love story between Cathy and Heathcliff, the adopted foster son of the Earnshaws. As the story unfolds, Cathy falls in love with Heathcliff, but she craves security and social status, which can be possible through a marriage to Edgar Linton.

On the other hand, Heathcliff after being driven mad by his love for Cathy will be haunted by her ghost. Wuthering Heights has been adapted to the screen multiple times in the past, including the most famous 1939 version starring Laurence Oliver and Merle Oberon. It was followed by a 1970 film, a 1992 film, and a 2011 adaptation in the latest.

Details about Fennell’s adaptation remain under wraps. Earlier this year, the Saltburn filmmaker teased the project with an interesting graphic. “Be with me always, Take any form, Drive me mad,” reads a message on it. In the January 2024 column for the Los Angeles Times, Fennell spoke about being “obsessed” with the Gothic.

“Whether it was Edward Gorey’s children who are variously choked by peaches, sucked dry by leeches, or smothered by rugs; Du Maurier’s imperilled heroines; or the disturbing erotic power of Angela Carter’s fairy tales, the gothic world has always had me in its grip,” she added as quoted by Variety.