‘Wuthering Heights’ Leads a Packed Valentine’s Box Office Weekend

This time last year, theaters found themselves in desperate need of quality releases from Hollywood to get out of a deep slump. Thankfully, this Valentine’s Day weekend should be better as four wide releases aim to bring in different types of audiences, with Warner Bros./MRC/LuckyChap’s “Wuthering Heights” expected to top the charts.

While not an original film like Warner’s Oscar nomination record-breaker “Sinners,” “Wuthering Heights” is still firmly rooted in studio chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy’s strategy of spending big bucks on auteur-driven films. This time, it’s “Promising Young Woman” Oscar winner Emerald Fennell they are betting on, as well as star and producer Margot Robbie in her return to Warner nearly three years after “Barbie” became the studio’s highest grossing film of all time.

Fennell and Robbie were reportedly offered $150 million by Netflix to bring their adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic 19th century novel to streaming, but the duo went with Warner’s comparatively smaller $80 million offer out of a desire to get the film a full theatrical release. And Warner is pulling out all the stops with a full marketing campaign and a release this weekend on Imax screens to make sure that DP Linus Sandgren’s melodramatic imagery feels truly larger than life.

So will “Wuthering Heights” be another hit for Warner, De Luca and Abdy? So far, the projections look promising. Independent trackers and exhibition sources have the film earning a $45-50 million 4-day opening over the Valentine’s/Presidents Day period, with Warner more conservative at $40 million.

The biggest advantage that “Wuthering Heights” has had in the runup to its release is that it is coming out less than two months after a hit film aimed at the same core audience of 18-35 women: Lionsgate’s “The Housemaid.” That holiday thriller, which has made more than $350 million worldwide, had “Wuthering Heights” trailers attached to every screening, increasing awareness and interest among the moviegoers most likely to buy a ticket to Fennell’s film.

Now it needs to convert that interest into sustained post-release buzz, and that will come down to whether a majority of opening weekend moviegoers embrace Fennell’s adaptation for what it is. What it is not, as Fennell has acknowledged in interviews, is a faithful recreation of Bronte’s book, excising multiple supporting characters and the novel’s framing narrative to focus specifically on the doomed romance between Robbie’s Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi’s tortured antihero Heathcliff.

That departure has irked some fans of Bronte’s book on social media and has drawn criticism from some reviewers like TheWrap’s William Bibbiani, who praised the stylization of “Wuthering Heights” but called its approach to adaptation “annoyingly reductive.” Still, critical reception for the film is leaning positive with a 70% Rotten Tomatoes score.

For “Wuthering Heights” to leg out, its steamy narrative will have to win over the majority of opening weekend moviegoers, especially those on Thursday and Friday night who will set the tone for the audience word-of-mouth. If those early screenings leave the audience blown away, it could encourage stronger walk-up turnout from women and couples looking to spend Valentine’s Day on Saturday at the movies.

And if “Wuthering Heights” does prove successful, the positive effects will ripple beyond its theatrical run. Along with “The Housemaid,” Hollywood is building momentum with a series of films catering specifically to women that will continue in the months ahead with Universal’s “Reminders of Him” and 20th Century’s “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”

Both of these films will almost assuredly have trailers attached to “Wuthering Heights” just as that film looked to market off the strong female turnout that “The Housemaid” drew. When a specific demographic keeps turning out month in and month out, it reduces the pressure on the big four-quadrant films like “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” to do the heavy lifting for theaters, and will give this February a stronger chance at posting the first $500 million-plus monthly total since the pandemic.

Another cohort that theaters hope will keep coming to theaters after showing up in droves this holiday season is families, and for that, they will turn to Sony Pictures Animation’s “Goat.” With Golden State Warriors legend Steph Curry attached as producer and releasing this weekend to time with the NBA All-Star Game, “Goat” is the first of a series of original animated films coming out from various Hollywood studios in 2026.

And that originality is seriously needed. Save for a precious few exceptions like Illumination’s “Migration,” the vast majority of animated films released in theaters since the pandemic not based on pre-existing IP came from Disney and Pixar, which found some success with the 2023 film “Elemental” but has seen films like “Wish,” “Strange World” and “Elio” fall flat.

Between rising living costs and more options at home, families have grown more selective about their theater options. Given a family of four costs up to $80 (not including concessions), they’re only turning up for films they’re familiar with. That skews the playing field towards sequels and known characters, while successful original animation like last year’s massively successful “KPop Demon Hunters,” have usually come from streaming.

But there’s only so many sequels that can be made from video games or older films like “Moana” and “Zootopia.” New original hits need to be found, and 2026 is looking like the year where studios like Sony Animation and DreamWorks will join Disney in giving it a try.

As for “Goat,” projections have the film earning a $35-38 million 4-day opening, similar to the $36 million 3-day opening that Universal/DreamWorks’ early-year family film “Dog Man” earned in January 2025. That film went on to gross $98 million domestic and $149 million worldwide, a figure that “Goat” will have a good chance to match with its strong 81% RT score.

That would be enough for “Goat” to be a modest theatrical success and above the $72.9 million domestic run of “Elio” at half the budget; but compared to the $175 million domestic run of DreamWorks’ “The Boss Baby” in 2017 or the $341 million of the first “Zootopia” in spring 2016, it’s a far cry from what original films used to make. The last original animated film to top $500 million at the global box office was “Coco” in 2017, and it is unlikely that “Goat” will end that drought.

For adult audiences, Amazon MGM will release the crime thriller “Crime 101,” which stars Chris Hemsworth as a jewel thief whose latest heist in Los Angeles brings him into an uneasy alliance with an insurance broker played by Halle Berry. Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nick Nolte fill out the ensemble cast.

While Amazon MGM is counting on next month’s “Project Hail Mary” to be its first big tentpole hit amidst the expansion of its theatrical strategy, it could really use a successful run from “Crime 101” given that its first two releases, “Mercy” and “Melania,” haven’t exactly left a mark on the box office, with the latter being more of a political lightning rod than anything else. “Mercy” has grossed just $49.5 million worldwide after three weekends in theaters, while the MAGA doc “Melania” has grossed just $13.3 million after two weekends.

“Crime 101” should have a slightly better opening than “Mercy,” with projections standing at $17 million over four days. The film does not have a Rotten Tomatoes score at time of writing.

Finally, Briarcliff Entertainment will release Gore Verbinski’s sci-fi satire “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” which stars Sam Rockwell as a shabby time traveler looking to save Earth from an AI-driven dystopian future. It is projected for a $5 million opening over four days, which would be the best opening ever for Briarcliff since its founding in 2018.

The studio’s record for its highest grossing film is the 2022 Liam Neeson action film “Blacklight” with $9.5 million, a mark that “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” should be able to top with this start. The film has enjoyed very strong reviews since its Fantastic Fest premiere last year, earning a 93% RT score.

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