Wuthering Heights poster teases a fierce Margot Robbie–Jacob Elordi romance and a stormier take on Brontë

A classic love story gets a dangerous sheen

Warner Bros. Pictures has unveiled the first look at Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights, and the poster does not play coy. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are locked in a windswept embrace, faces lit like a studio-era romance, with a single, loaded tease splashed across the image: “Come undone.” It’s a clear invitation—this isn’t soft-focus nostalgia. It’s a love story that burns through the moors and leaves scars.

The composition makes a bold choice: it echoes the grand sweep of Golden Age imagery, the kind you associate with the poster for Gone with the Wind. Elordi’s Heathcliff cradles Robbie’s Catherine Earnshaw as if time has stopped, but the vibe is icier, more haunted. A leafless tree lurks in fog behind them, and the typography leans gothic. It’s romance with a bruise—fitting for Emily Brontë’s novel, which is less “happily ever after” and more “what happens when love curdles into obsession.”

Fennell—who wrote, directed, and is producing—has a distinct way of mixing polish with menace. Promising Young Woman won her an Oscar for original screenplay and announced her taste for moral gray zones. Saltburn doubled down on desire, class, and power games. She’s stepping into Brontë’s world with that same appetite for the charged and the uncomfortable, and the poster signals she’s not softening the edges.

Warner Bros. paired the poster drop with the first trailer, giving a quick sense of pace and mood. No full synopsis yet, but the setup is timeless: Catherine and Heathcliff fall deep, then tear each other—and everyone around them—apart. The studio also planted its release flag: February 13, 2026, in the US and UK. Valentine’s weekend might sound sweet, but it’s a savvy move. If you’ve read the novel, you know the love here is all-consuming, not cute. The date positions the movie as counterprogramming to lighter fare while leaning into a broad audience that wants a big, emotional spectacle.

On paper, the casting clicks. Robbie can pivot from brittle to feral in a blink, which Catherine needs. She’s also producing, continuing her streak of getting big, bold projects made with major studios. Elordi has been on a fast rise, moving from Euphoria to playing Elvis Presley in Priscilla. Heathcliff demands charisma, mystery, and cruelty in one package, and Elordi has the physical presence and glare to go there. The poster frames them like stars from a bygone era, but the tension in their faces hints at something harsher underneath.

The supporting cast backs up the central collision. Shazad Latif steps in as Edgar Linton, the gentler counterpoint to Heathcliff’s storm. Hong Chau plays Nelly Dean, the housekeeper and witness who steers the story and translates the chaos; Vy Nguyen is credited as Young Nelly. Alison Oliver appears as Isabella Linton, whose life is dragged into the blast radius. The production also lists Charlotte Mellington as Young Catherine and Owen Cooper as Young Heathcliff, suggesting the film will cut across time to show how early wounds harden into adult choices.

That last part matters. Many screen versions compress Brontë’s structure, especially the thorny back-and-forth of memory and the way pain echoes across years. Including younger versions of Catherine and Heathcliff hints that Fennell wants us to sit with the origin stories, not just the outcomes. The result could be a character study with real momentum: how two people get shaped by class, rejection, and desire, and then weaponize all of it.

There’s also the question of how far the adaptation goes. The novel spans generations and plays with narrators, gossip, and unreliable memory. The most famous screen take, William Wyler’s 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, focused on the early arc and trimmed the later threads. Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version went the other way in spirit—earthy, rough, close to the mud and weather. Fennell’s poster plants a flag somewhere else: stylized, glamorized, but not gentle. It looks like a dream, the kind that leaves you sweating.

Marketing-wise, the studio is borrowing the pull of classic Hollywood posters for instant recognition, but the details steer the mood darker. The fog. The dead tree. The tagline. This is a clean way to promise scale without promising comfort. Period films that crossed over recently—think Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby or Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina—used lush surfaces to draw crowds, then layered in bite. Fennell’s work suggests she’s after a similar trick: beauty as bait, danger as payoff.

Timing is another telling choice. Opening on Valentine’s weekend gives Warner Bros. a runway for couples, book clubs, and awards-watchers. It also slots the film into a season that has room for an adult-leaning drama with star power. If the trailer backs up the poster’s promise—sweeping, moody, unafraid of messy feelings—this could be one of those winter releases that stays in the conversation past its opening frame.

Beyond the vibes, the story’s themes feel right for now. Class snobbery, inheritance, and the way outsiders get used until they don’t—Brontë was writing about all of it. Heathcliff’s outsider status and the rigid rules of the Earnshaw and Linton worlds keep fueling new readings. In recent years, adaptations have been more open about his ambiguity—background, race, power—and how that changes the charge between him and Catherine. Casting and design choices will say plenty without a speech.

Fennell’s control behind the camera is also a practical bet. Giving one voice the reins across writing, directing, and producing can tighten tone and keep a big studio project from feeling committee-built. With Robbie producing and leading, the film has another strong hand advocating for big swings. That’s often how novel adaptations make it to screens intact: someone at the center fights for the unpretty parts as much as the poster moments.

If you’ve never read the book, the basics are simple and sharp. Catherine and Heathcliff grow up together on the Yorkshire moors. They’re obsessed with each other but pulled apart by class and choice. Resentment mutates into revenge. Love doesn’t heal; it haunts. The great test for any adaptation is tone—can you get the romance and the rot on the same canvas? The poster says Fennell is going to try.

So what should viewers expect from the trailer that just dropped with the poster? Look for weather as emotion, rooms that feel too tight, and the push-pull between tenderness and cruelty. If the music leans string-heavy and then fractures, that’ll match the “Come undone” promise. And if the dialogue stays spare but loaded, it’ll leave space for glances to do the damage.

Studios don’t often plant a flag this far out without confidence. A Valentine’s 2026 date gives over a year of runway for festival plans, a fall awards push, or a late-year prestige build—depending on how Warner Bros. wants to play it. For now, we’ve got a poster that hits the nerve of the story and a trailer that starts the drumbeat. The moors are calling, and the storm sounds ready.

Cast and key credits

• Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw; also on board as a producer
• Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff
• Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton
• Hong Chau as Nelly Dean; Vy Nguyen as Young Nelly
• Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton
• Charlotte Mellington as Young Catherine
• Owen Cooper as Young Heathcliff
• Written, directed, and produced by Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn)
• Warner Bros. Pictures will release the film in theaters on February 13, 2026 (US and UK)

The poster leans into grandeur, the tagline whispers danger, and the cast signals heat. If that balance holds, Wuthering Heights could deliver a version of Brontë that feels faithful in spirit and fresh in the gut—storm clouds and all.