Emerald Fennell to direct new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights after Saltburn success

By Laura Parkin For Mailonline

Published: 13:38 BST, 16 July 2024 | Updated: 13:47 BST, 16 July 2024

Emerald Fennell is set to direct a new movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it was announced on Tuesday. 

The Academy Award winning filmmaker, 38, who is best known for her thriller Saltburn, will next helm an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic Gothic romance. 

The novel has been adapted numerous times, the most recent starring Kaya Scodelario as the tragic heroine Catherine Earnshaw in 2011. 

Sharing the news to X, Emerald shared a graphic of two hand drawn skeletons, with a quote from the book. 

‘Be with me always. Take any form. Drive me mad,’ a line said by Heathcliff after the death of Catherine. 

Emerald Fennell is set to direct a new movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it was announced on Tuesday (pictured in June)

The novel has been adapted numerous times, the most recent starring Kaya Scodelario (pictured) as the tragic heroine Catherine Earnshaw in 2011

Deadline has confirmed Emerald will be working with studio MRC for the upcoming film but no actors have yet been confirmed.

The 1847 novel was published by Emily Brontë under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, one year before her death. 

It follows the story of an orphan, Heathcliff, who is taken in by the Earnshaw family, he later grows close to their daughter and his foster sister, Cathy. 

The first known adaptation was from A. V. Bramble in 1920, with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon’s 1939 version being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. 

Born in 1818 in West Yorkshire, Emily was the fifth of six children, and spent most of her short life in the moorland village of Haworth, where her Irish father Patrick was curate.

But life dealt Emily a series of terrible blows as she lost her mother when she was three, then two older sisters when she was seven.

Following her trauma, the novelist retreated into a fantasy world, writing stories and poetry with her siblings.

The writer poured her suffering and passion into Wuthering Heights, a wrenching love story as raw as the Yorkshire Moors on which it’s set.

Sharing the news to X, Emerald shared a graphic of two hand drawn skeletons, with a quote from the book

It was in 2014 when Emerald sprang to fame in as boisterous redheaded nurse Patsy Mount on Call The Midwife.

In addition to writing screenplays, she has penned a series of novels, which have also earnt her acclaim.

Her first two books, Shiverton Hall in 2013 and its sequel The Creeper (shortlisted for the Waterstones 2014 Children’s Book Prize), were written for older children.

2023’s Saltburn shocked viewers upon its release, with some loving the film’s outrageous moments and others left outraged.

:
Emerald Fennell to direct new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights after Saltburn success

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk