Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, known for starring in Barbie and Saltburn, are to join forces in a major new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

The Australian actors will play Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff in director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of the classic Emily Bronte novel, set on the tempestuous Yorkshire moors.

They may be two of Hollywood’s hottest stars, and it may be one of the most enduring love stories ever written, but their casting has left many film fans unimpressed.

“Did anyone actually read the book before deciding this?” asked the Independent’s film critic Clarisse Loughrey.

Some pointed out that Catherine is in her teens in the book, while Heathcliff is described in the novel, written in 1847, as “dark-skinned”.

“White Heathcliff and 34-year-old Cathy, and they both look like they belong on Instagram. I’m obsessed,” wrote TV and film critic Gavia Baker-Whitelaw.

She added: “Emerald Fennell does it again [derogatory].”

The Collider critic and editor Maggie Boccella vented: "It is painfully obvious that Fennell doesn’t actually care about Wuthering Heights’s themes.

“She just wants to make a tortured lovers drama with a name that’ll put butts in seats. As though her last two movies didn’t make that shallowness obvious already.”