Wuthering Heights Delivers Strong U.S. Box Office Start Ahead Of Holiday Weekend Debut

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Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights.

Published Feb 13, 2026, 3:49 PM EST

Autumn Hawkins is a journalist and editor focusing on trending topics in television and film. Autumn has over five years of experience and has written for broadcast, digital, and print. She has also conducted interviews with actresses Meagan Good and Paige Hurd previously.

For all the lovebirds with Valentine's Day plans this weekend, Wuthering Heights might need to make your itinerary, as the film is already having a strong box office start.

During Thursday, February 12 previews, the film, starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie and directed by Emerald Fennell, already has $3 million in sales at 3,000 locations nationwide, according to Deadline. As for the weekend, the film, which is based on a fictional 18th-century love story, has $14 million in presales, which could make for a $40 million to $50 million opening weekend for the film.

Prior to Wuthering Heights, Fennell released Saltburn in 2023, which had a limited release in theaters. The film pulled through to make $315,000-$322,000 from the seven theaters in its first weekend.

Another limited release of hers got her some attention with the release of Promising Young Woman in 2020. Despite it being released during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fennell, who wrote the screenplay and directed it, was able to get some attention for her feature directorial debut with $719,305 in sales opening weekend, The Numbers reports. Fennell would later earn an Oscar for Promising Young Woman for Best Original Screenplay.

Wuthering Heights will be sharing the box office during Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend with Solo Mío, starring Kevin James, animated sports comedy GOAT with Caleb McLaughlin, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die with Sam Rockwell, Crime 101 with Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry, and Cold Storage starring Joe Kerry and Liam Neeson.

Wuthering Heights is based on Emily Brontë's only novel, which was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. In an interview with the BBC, she explained that she first read the book when she was 14 and, despite the backlash from her casting choices, she has every intention of showing fans her vision on screen.

“It’s an emotional response to something. It’s primal, sexual,” she said of the relationship between Robbie and Elordi's characters.

[It is] an act of extreme masochism to try and make a film of something that means this much to you. There’s an enormous amount of sado-masochism in this book. There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it.

Fennell shared that working on the film has been a "masochistic exercise” and “because I love it so much, and it can’t love me back, and I have to live with that”.

Fennell is no stranger to having mind-blowing and buzz-worthy opening weekends, so much is to be expected from Wuthering Heights.