{"id":424971,"date":"2026-02-14T07:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424971\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T07:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:07:08","slug":"wuthering-heights-delivers-early-valentines-day-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424971\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wuthering Heights’ Delivers Early Valentine’s Day Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMargot Robbie and Jacob Elordi\u2019s Wuthering Heights<\/a> won the crowded Thursday preview race with $3 million in sales. That\u2019s a solid showing for a literary adaptation that\u2019s hardly a conventional tale of Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s iconic novel as Warner Bros. movie chiefs Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca once again roll the dice on an auteur filmmaker, this time Emerald Fennell.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie \u2014 which also marks a key test for Robbie in the post-Barbie era \u2014 is expected to top the long Valentine\u2019s Day\/President\u2019s Day weekend with $40 million to $50 million for the four days. That\u2019s a stellar start for a title based on a book known best by older females. Warners marketing team is also working hard to seduce Gen Zers and younger Millennials, as reflected by much of the ad campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\tWarners and partner MRC paid $80 million to pick up rights to the project, reportedly beating out a far larger offer of $150 million from Netflix. Critics are somewhat divided over Fennell\u2019s steamy reinterpretation of the 1847 Brit-lit classic about obsessive love, possession and doomed passion on the West Yorkshire moors as the worlds of the brooding Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw collide.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMargot Robbie and Jacob Elordi Set Hearts and Loins Aquiver in Decidedly Non-Gothic Bront\u00eb Adaptation,\u201d headlined David Rooney\u2019s The Hollywood Reporter review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe holiday marquee is a sight for sore eyes after a sluggish start of the year.<\/p>\n

\n\tSony Animation and producer Stephen Curry<\/a>\u2018s GOAT<\/a> is expected to open to $20 million or more after earning $1 million in Thursday\u2019s previews. To boot, it boasts stellar exits and strong reviews<\/a> (don\u2019t forget that Sony animation is home of both the the Spider-Verse movies and cultural sensation Kpop Demon Hunters).<\/p>\n

\n\tInspired by a tale from Curry\u2019s childhood, the original family pic follows Will, a small goat with big dreams (Caleb McLaughlin) who\u00a0gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play\u00a0roarball\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport\u00a0dominated by the fastest,\u00a0fiercest animals in the world.\u00a0Will\u2019s new teammates aren\u2019t thrilled about having a little goat on their roster, but Will is determined to\u00a0revolutionize the sport and prove once and for all that \u201csmalls can ball<\/p>\n

\n\tDirected by Tyree Dillihay and co-directed by Adam Rosettee, the voice cast includes Gabrielle Union, Nicola Coughlan, Nick Kroll, David Harbour, Jenifer Lewis, Aaron Pierre, Patton Oswalt, Andrew Santino, Bobby Lee, Eduardo Franco, Sherry Cola, Jelly Roll and Jennifer Hudson. (Curry voices the role of a giraffe roarball player.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAppealing to critics the most appealing so far is Amazon MGM Studio and director Bart Layton\u2019s ensemble crime noir pic Crime 101, which earned a combined $1 million in previews, including previous sneaks. The Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo pic is targeting a $15 million-plus launch over the four-day holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe L.A.-set move, based on author Don Winslow\u2019s novella of the same name, follows detective Lou Lubesnick as he attempts to solve a string of multimillion-dollar jewel heists by tracking the perpetrator who follows a strict set of rules known as \u201cCrime 101.\u201d As the fates of the various characters converge, the line between hunter and hunted blurs. <\/p>\n

\n\tWorking Title produced Crime 101 alongside The Story Factory, RAW and Wild State. Amazon MGM paid $90 million-plus for rights to the project. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s current Rotten Tomatoes score is 86 percent, compared to 65 percent for Wuthering Heights and 79 percent for GOAT. (THR\u2018s review<\/a> of Crime 101 more skeptical than of the others.)<\/p>\n

\n\tPreview numbers at this level don\u2019t deliver a verdict in either direction. Rather, studios will get a sense of where they stand as matinee business starts and early evening shows get underway, along with pressales. Wuthering Heights is seeing brisk sales for Saturday, or Valentine\u2019s day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi\u2019s Wuthering Heights won the crowded Thursday preview race with $3 million in sales.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7214,96,109754,156066,2839,39048,56,54,55,1829],"class_list":{"0":"post-424971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-box-office","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-goat","11":"tag-margo-robbie","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-stephen-curry","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom","17":"tag-wuthering-heights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}