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Wuthering Heights is one of the most celebrated and tragic love stories in British fiction. But the tale of obsession and revenge that surrounds Heathcliff's doomed love for the wayward Cathy is stirring fevered debate among Bronte enthusiasts as two new screen versions go into production.
The competing adaptations, both of which will begin shooting later this year, will offer radically different takes on Emily Bronte's literary classic.
A three-part television version, which is described as "edgy, cool and raw" by sources close to the project, will see a distraught Heathcliff kill himself when he hears of Cathy's death.
Tom Hardy, 30, takes the role of the brooding Heathcliff, whose all-consuming but thwarted love for Catherine Earnshaw, his foster sister, lies at the heart of the novel. Andrew Lincoln, best know to Kiwis from his role as a lovelorn wedding videographer in Love Actually, will play Edgar Linton, Cathy's gentle childhood friend, who later furiously provokes Heathcliff by marrying her. Former Coronation Street actress Sarah Lancashire will also appear in the TV version.
Meanwhile, the British film version has been thrown into chaos after American actress Natalie Portman withdrew despite having pursued the role of the tragic heroine. Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan were also reported to be vying for the role.
The film version is likely to stick more closely to the idea of Heathcliff and Cathy as teenage sweethearts. Its script has been written by Olivia Hetreed, who wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Girl With A Pearl Earring.
Robert Bernstein, of Ecosse Films, which is producing the movie, says: "Heathcliff is an immigrant thrust into a family, a social experiment gone wrong. It goes haywire. He's not domesticated enough to control his passions. Cathy can't let go of him - although he represents all the things she's scared of."
The novel has given rise to many adaptations and has inspired films, television dramatisations, a musical, ballet and opera as well as songs - notably the hit by Kate Bush. The most famous film version starred Merle Oberon as Cathy and Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and was nominated for the best picture Oscar in 1940. A 1989 version starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche performed poorly at the box office.
Many of the adaptations of the book do not cover the whole novel, preferring to concentrate on the doomed love between Cathy and Heathcliff rather than including the repercussions on the next generation.
Patsy Stoneman, a Bronte specialist and the author of several books on Wuthering Heights, welcomed the new adaptations but said she doubted whether either project could fully capture the essence of the novel.
"There has never been a definitive visual adaptation and there never will be," she says. "They are all partial perspectives on the novel, and it's not like you can add them all together to make a whole."
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