Wuthering Heights gallops towards $103m in global ticket sales

LOS ANGELES – This is a reminder of what Hollywood studios are missing out on when they exclude women from directing jobs.

English film-maker Emerald Fennell’s lacquered new take on Wuthering Heights was on pace to sell roughly US$40 million (S$50 million) in tickets from Feb 13 through Feb 16 in the United States and Canada, according to Warner Bros, which distributed the film.

The movie, starring Australian actors Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, was expected to take in an additional US$42 million over that period overseas, giving Fennell’s film a pulse-pounding US$82 million global debut.

Warner Bros spent an estimated US$80 million on the M18 romance, not including hefty marketing costs.

Netflix had offered roughly US$150 million for the project, which Fennell adapted from English writer Emily Bronte’s classic novel of the same name.

Fennell and Robbie, who produced the movie with MRC, an independent film company, went with Warner Bros because it promised a wide theatrical release, something Netflix had refused. In the end, Warner Bros booked Wuthering Heights into 18,028 cinemas worldwide.

Fennell, 40, is a rarity in Hollywood – a woman who has received steady and substantial support for her filmmaking, despite a lack of box office success early on.

Her first feature film, Promising Young Woman, was a critical darling in 2020, earning Fennell an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and a nomination for Best Director.

But that movie was released when the Covid-19 pandemic had forced many cinemas to close; the film collected only US$6.5 million in the US and Canada. Fennell’s second movie, Saltburn, arrived in 2023 and took in about US$11 million.

“The studios routinely take risks on inexperienced male directors, giving them first and often second chances,” said Dr Martha Lauzen, who leads the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. “The same can’t be said for women who direct.”

In 2025, women made up 13 per cent of directors working on the top-250 films at the North American box office, down from 16 per cent in 2024, according to Dr Lauzen’s “celluloid ceiling” research.

“Given declining box office revenues and the pervasive creative malaise in the business, one would think the studios would aggressively seek out and nurture directors, including women, with fresh perspectives and promising first features,” she said.

Movie theatres in North America sold US$8.9 billion in tickets in 2025, a 2 per cent increase from a year earlier. But the box office remains roughly 20 per cent below totals for pre-pandemic years.

Warner Bros, the studio that Netflix and Paramount Skydance are fighting each other to purchase, has become one exception. In March, Warner Bros will release The Bride!, an US$80 million movie directed by American film-maker Maggie Gyllenhaal and inspired by the 1935 classic Bride Of Frankenstein.

For the holiday weekend in the US, which included Valentine’s Day on Feb 14 and Presidents’ Day on Feb 16, Wuthering Heights was No. 1, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data.

The film’s audience was roughly 76 per cent female and 68 per cent white, according to PostTrak, a film industry research service. Ticket buyers gave it a B-grade in CinemaScore exit polls.

Goat, an original animated movie about an animal with dreams to play in the basketball big leagues, was a strong second, with expected ticket sales from Feb 13 through Feb 16 of about US$32 million. Sony spent about US$80 million to make Goat, which took in an additional US$16 million in partial release overseas.

Crime 101, a US$90 million thriller from Amazon MGM Studios, took in about US$18 million in third place, with overseas ticket sales adding another US$12 million. NYTIMES