Saltburn director faces backlash as Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie cast in Wuthering Heights

Emerald Fennell's choice of Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie for her film adaptation of Wuthering Heights has sparked uproar among fans.

The acclaimed director, who clinched the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2021 for Promising Young Woman, hinted in July about her plans to bring Emily Brontë's iconic novel to the big screen. The initial reveal was met with excitement, as enthusiasts pitched their favoured picks for Catherine Earnshaw and her brooding lover Heathcliff, with names like Joseph Quinn of Stranger Things fame for Heathcliff and Florence Pugh of Midsommar for Cathy gaining traction.

However, a recent update by Deadline announcing the casting of Jacob Elordi from Saltburn and Margot Robbie, star of Barbie, as the film's leads has left fans seething.

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The sticking point for many fans of the books is that Elordi's ethnicity does not match with the character's depiction in Emily Brontë's narrative. A comment on X, previously known as Twitter, underscored this frustration: "Gonna just keep whitewashing Heathcliff I see. Heathcliff is mixed race. He's described as having dark skin in the book. Andrea Arnold is the only director brave enough to actually cast a person of colour in the role and why her version is underrated."

Disappointment permeated Reddit threads too. One Brontë devotee penned: "Another white Heathcliff? Why!?", while another lamented the casting decision as "my nightmare", reports the Mirror.

Andrea Arnold's 2011 interpretation of the 19th-century romance was the first significant adaptation to cast a black actor, James Howson, as Heathcliff. Arnold's film is the most-recent based on the literary classic, and her casting choice sparked debate among critics.

Fans have also noted that the actors' ages do not align with their characters. In the novel, Cathy is a teenager who passes away around the age of 18 or 19 - Robbie is currently 34 years old.

The A-list actors have led major box office successes over the past two years. Elordi featured in Saltburn, also directed by Fennell, which raked in $21.1 million worldwide, while Robbie portrayed the main character in the billion-dollar success Barbie.

Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights is scheduled to begin filming in the UK in 2025, according to Deadline.