Posted 3 minutes agoSubscribe to Screen Time NewsletterCaret DownEmerald Fennell Wants Her Controversial Adaptation Of "Wuthering Heights" To Be "This Generation's 'Titanic'" - And People Have ThoughtsIcymi, Emerald's adaptation of the beloved 1847 novel has been seriously controversial from the get-go.by Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink Emerald Fennell's upcoming movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights has been highly controversial ever since it was announced last year, with the casting for the classic 1847 novel by Emily Brontë sparking fierce online backlash. Warner Bros / Via youtube.com In case you missed it, many felt that 35-year-old Margot Robbie was too old to play 18-year-old Catherine Earnshaw, and that Jacob Elordi is probably too white to play Heathcliff, who is described in the book as "dark-skinned." Warner Bros / Via youtube.com While Heathcliff's race and ethnicity is kept ambiguous in the novel, at one point, another character refers to him as "a little Lascar," which means a sailor from Southeast Asia, and in a later part of the text, he is described as a "ragged, black-haired child... as dark almost as if it came from the devil." Despite this, it's worth noting that Heathcliff has historically been portrayed by white actors, with the exception of the 2011 film, in which he was played by James Howson. Warner Bros / Via youtube.com Back in April, the movie's casting director, Kharmel Cochrane, added fuel to the fire when she defended the two actors taking on the roles during a Q&A session at the Sands Film Festival in Scotland. Here, she argued that the actors don't need to match how Brontë describes the characters because Wuthering Heights is "just a book." Warner Bros / Via youtube.com "If something is clearly written as white, for example, a script reads 'she tied her blonde hair back,' but there's no specific reason for it, I will just put people on tape," she added. "And then it's almost like I dare someone to question why I've done it, and they don't. So then it just becomes normal. Years ago, I would get people saying, 'Did you read the brief?' And I'd say yeah, and this is my interpretation of it, just like when you can read a book." "There's definitely going to be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy," Kharmel went on to tease. "Wait until you see the set design because that is even more shocking." Warner Bros / Via youtube.com And when the first trailer for the movie was released in September, fans only became even more sceptical - with some even theorizing that there is going to be a huge plot twist where Margot and Jacob aren't actually playing Catherine and Heathcliff in the traditional sense. Warner Bros / Via youtube.com In fact, a TikToker went viral after she noted that the title frame of the trailer showed the movie's name in quotation marks, which led her to the belief that Emerald's adaptation will be a take on Wuthering Heights, but Margot's character will be a horny Victorian-era yearner who is reading the book for the first time and imagining herself as Catherine. Warner Bros / Via youtube.com "It's possible she's just a fellow yearner, like us, dissociating and daydreaming of her Heathcliff as a way to escape her normal life," the TikToker explained, as she also pointed out the discrepancy in the costumes seen in the trailer. While some are reminiscent of the late 1700s, which is when the actual book's storyline takes place, other costumes lean more toward Victorian fashion, which became popularized in the mid-to-late 1800s. Warner Bros / Via youtube.com Needless to say, for better or for worse, there is a whole lot of hype surrounding the release of Wuthering Heights, which will be hitting our screens on Feb. 13, with pretty much everybody dubious of how well Emerald and co. will pull the whole thing off. And that is why Margot sharing Emerald's hugely aspirational hopes for the movie in a new interview with British Vogue has sparked a pretty strong reaction online. Dave Benett / Getty Images "In one of our first conversations about this film, I asked Emerald what her dream outcome was," Margot told the publication. "She said, 'I want this to be this generation's Titanic. I went to the cinema to watch Romeo & Juliet eight times, and I was on the ground crying when I wasn't allowed to go back for a ninth. I want it to be that.'" Cbs Photo Archive / Getty Images Margot added that she and Emerald hope that women "go see it with 10 of their female friends," while also insisting that it is also going to be "an amazing date movie." Perhaps unsurprisingly, social media users had thoughts on Emerald's bold dreams, with Margot's Titanic quote instantly going viral on X. Responding to it, one person wrote: "shes off the rails delusional i kind of admire her." Eamonn M. Mccormack / Getty Images "oh, emerald..." another simply tweeted.
Somebody else claimed: "emerald fennell has to be top 3 rage baiters of all time.""they're trying to do a barbie