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Wuthering Heights has ravished the global box office in its opening weekend, with the new Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie adaptation taking US$76.8m (£56m, A$108m).
Emerald Fennell’s reimagining of Emily Brontë’s novel made US$34.8m in the North American box office from 3,682 locations, making it the year’s biggest opening so far.
While this is lower than early projections of a $40m to $50m opening weekend in the US and Canada, studio Warner Bros. has projected it will reach $40m by the end of the President’s Day long weekend in the US.
Internationally, Wuthering Heights passed predictions to make US$42m in 76 territories, with more men reportedly making up audiences outside North America, where PostTrak polling estimated 76% of ticket buyers were women.
The romantic drama, starring Australians Robbie and Elordi as Catherine and Heathcliff, also performed strongly in Australia, where it made A$6.07m (US$4.3m) in its opening weekend, which Deadline attributed to the stars’ “home field advantage”.
A global total of US$82m, taking in the whole US long weekend, would mean Wuthering Heights had already recouped its reported $80m production budget in its opening weekend, not accounting for the millions spent on marketing and promotion. And the film still has several big openings on the horizon, in Japan and Vietnam on 27 February, and in China on 13 March.
The success comes as the future of Warner Bros. hangs in the balance, with Paramount continuing to sweeten its hostile takeover bid in hopes of winning out over Netflix. Wuthering Heights is the studio’s ninth No 1 opening in a row, following a 2025 slate that included A Minecraft Movie, Final Destination Bloodlines, and Weapons. The studio also boasts the two key contenders at this year’s Oscars: Sinners and One Battle After Another.
Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights, which takes many liberties with Emily Brontë’s novel, has largely divided critics. It’s currently sitting at a mixed 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. While that didn’t dissuade audiences from buying tickets, only 51% of the opening-weekend audience said that they would “definitely recommend” the film to friends. Moviegoers also gave it a less-than-stellar B CinemaScore.
“This was a solid if not record-breaking Presidents Day/Valentine’s weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, who heads marketplace trends for Comscore. “But that was to be expected without an MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe] film.”
GOAT, an animated film produced by US basketball star Stephen Curry, landed in second place in the North American box office with an estimated US$26m from 3,863 locations. It’s projected to bring in another $6m on Monday, which would bring its four-day total to US$32m — the biggest animated debut since Elemental in 2023. It also pulled in US$15.6m internationally, bringing its global total to US$47.6m.
In third place, Crime 101 made an estimated US$15.1m in its first three days. Amazon MGM Studios opened the Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo thriller in 3,161 theaters. It’s expected to pull in about $17.8m by the end of Monday, but the movie has a long way to go to even hit its production budget, which reportedly exceeded $90m.
The Walt Disney Studios also celebrated a milestone this weekend, becoming the first studio to cross $1bn at the global box office in 2026, driven almost entirely by Avatar: Fire and Ash, but also helped by the continued success of Zootopia 2, which remains in the top 10 after 12 weekends in theatres.
Final North American box office figures taking in the four-day long weekend will be released on Tuesday.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
