First look at Aussie stars in controversial Hollywood blockbuster

Fans of a gothic period piece have been well and truly fed this morning with the release of the first trailer for Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaption of Wuthering Heights.

The film sees two of Australia’s biggest stars, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, take on the leading roles from Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, but they’ve already received a slew of backlash.

Following the release of the trailer, it seems fans are torn between a love for Fennell’s cinematic style and disappointment in the director’s disregard for the sentiment of the source material.

Watch the video above.

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Keep reading for everything we know so far about the 2026 adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Trailer release

On Thursday, September 4, Aussies woke to see find the highly-anticipated first trailer for Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights had been released.

The 1:31 minute clip sees Robbie’s Catherine Earnshaw torn between her duty to class and undeniable attraction to Elordi’s Heathcliff.

While some fans were delighted by the release, others weren’t so thrilled.

While Fennell (the mind behind Saltburn and Promising Young Woman) is known for her hyper-stylised aesthetic, often telling stories of a harsh nature through a glamorous lense, some fans seem to think she has taken things too far with her reimagination of the 1847 novel.

“Ya hear that? That was the breathless gasp of the corpse of the author having a stake nailed through her heart,” one viewer wrote on YouTube.

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However, others have argued that to bring a story nearing two centuries old to life for a 2026 audience, it would require nothing less than Fennell’s unsettling narrative style.

But, no matter what viewers think of our first glimpse of the film, there is no denying the controversy that has shrouded the movie since the cast was first announced. 

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Casting controversy

Robbie and Elordi were announced as Catherine and Heathcliff back in September 2024, and immediately the internet was enraged.

The team behind the film has been accused of white-washing by casting Elordi, a white man, in the role of Heathcliff.

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While Brontë never explicitly states Heathcliff’s ethnicity in the novel, she describes him as “dark-skinned” and his racial ambiguity becomes a major part of his storyline as he is treated as less-than on the basis of his race.

In the novel, Brontë also reveals Heathcliff was found as a child in Liverpool before being adopted, an area that would have operated as a major port for Britain’s transatlantic slave trade at the time.

All this to say, fans were outraged by the decision to cast Elordi in the role – especially since previous adaptations have seen other white actors such as Tom Hardy (2009) and Ralph Fiennes (1992) take on the role.

Many argue we should now be able to recognise a social responsibility for representation in film.

But it isn’t just the white-washing of Heathcliff that had fans up in arms, although it was the main point – many also argued Robbie was the wrong choice for Catherine.

**Wuthering Heights spoilers below**

You’ve had nearly two decades to read the novel, so if you haven’t by now, just know you’re stepping into spoiler territory here.

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Fennell once again came under fire for casting Robbie, a 35-year-old woman, as Catherine, who begins the novel at 12 years old and is only 19 when she dies toward the end.

Then, when paparazzi snaps of Robbie on set were released, the backlash only got worse.

Wuthering Heights is thought to be set in the late 1700s, so when Robbie appeared in a white wedding dress – a tradition not created until the Victorian Era in the 1830s – fans of the novel weren’t happy.

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Then, when they noticed the dress to be covered in glitter, which wasn’t invented until 1934, the criticisms only heightened.

However, many have come to realise that with the film being catered to a modern audience, the historical inaccuracies of the wedding gown may be a battle not worth fighting. 

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