Saltburn and Promising Young Woman writer-director Emerald Fennell has teased an adaptation of Wuthering Heights in a post on X that elicited excitable online speculation on Friday.
Fennell posted an image bearing the legends “Be With Me Always. Take Any Form. Drive Me Mad” and “A Film By Emerald Fennell”.
Screen has confirmed Fennell is reuniting with Saltburn collaborator MRC Film on the latest take on Emily Brontë’s mid-19th century gothic tale of obsession and desire involving Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff.
Alison Owen of Monumental Pictures is lining up what is understood to be a separate Wuthering Heights project with Studiocanal. Screen has reached out to both Owen and Studiocanal.
Interestingly, the British writer-director drew similarities between Saltburn and Wuthering Heights while promoting the former last year.
Talking to Time magazine about the scene where Oliver played by Barry Keoghan prostrates himself over the grave of Felix (Jacob Elordi) and grinds the earth, and the passage in Bronte’s novel where Heathcliff digs down to Cathy’s grave, Fennell noted the gothic tradition where sex and death are “kind of intertwined”.
Wuthering Heights has been adapted several times before, most recently by Andrea Arnold in 2011 starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson. Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche starred for Peter Kosminsky in the 1992 version, and Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon starred in William Wyler’s 1939 film.
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