This has been the summer of toxic romance (we’re still recovering from new episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and we haven’t forgotten about YOU season 5), but it seems like we’re only getting started. Wuthering Heights, originally a novel by Emily Bronte, is a captivating and dark romance that challenges the status quo and shows the struggle between following your heart and following logic when it comes to love. There’s also a good deal of revenge-plotting on the part of the scorned lover.
In the book, logic tells the main character, Catherine, to marry Edgar, a man of wealth. But she has a deeper romantic love for Heathcliff, an orphan with no money and a dark complexion that would have been deemed inferior by most locals in Liverpool at the time. With outside pressures intensifying, Catherine chooses to marry Edgar. Heathcliff’s unrequited love for Catherine drives him mad in every sense of the word, and Catherine ends up having some regrets of her own, with little power to do anything about it.
If you’ve read the book, you know that it’s full of internal suffering, discrimination, hatred, death, and persistent yearning. Yet, it’s one of those books you just can’t put down because of how Bronte delivers the emotions in such a raw and vivid way.
If you haven’t read the book, it’s one of those things where “you just had to be there”. You must read it to get a full picture of why fans are not happy about the Wuthering Heights teaser trailer that Warner Bros. released. Yes, it’s written with Old English, but if high-school me could get through it, I think it’d be even more enjoyable as an adult reader.
The comments on the YouTube video were overwhelmingly negative, with statements like, “I didn’t know Wuthering Heights was the fourth installment in the 50 Shades of Gray franchise!” and, “Hollywood continues to fundamentally misunderstand Wuthering Heights”.
Fans of the book seem to feel that the teaser falls short in developing a film that would make Bronte proud. They made similar comments in a post by the official Wuthering Heights movie Instagram page. One such comment said, "tell me you didn't understand the source material without telling me you didn't understand the source material". Harsh critics!
Other attempts at bringing this story to life on screen were in 1939, with a black and white film by William Wyler, and a variety of TV mini-series between the 1970s and early 2000s. I am a fan of the original 1939 film but have always hoped that a newer production would happen. So far, I’m not feeling confident that the new movie will deliver.
The teaser does feel very 50 Shades of Gray-themed, undermining the concept of a deep love that exceeds infatuation and lust. The love that the two main characters have for each other becomes suffering, madness, and pain when they’re not together. Capturing the story adequately feels like an impossible task, but I’m still willing to give the movie a try.
Watch Wuthering Heights in theaters on Valentine’s Day 2026.
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