The Wonder Women

BY: Zak Wojnar

After nearly two months in theaters, Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot as the warrior princess, is proving to be a massive global hit, raking in $779 million at the worldwide box office, and that number is still rising. Wonder Woman-mania is at an all-time high, surpassing even the heyday of Linda Carter‘s tenure as DC Comics‘ most famous leading lady, and this new biopic is looking to explore the secret origins of the iconic heroine.

In Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, Luke Evans (Beauty & The Beast, The Girl on the Train) stars as the titular psychologist and renowned inventor of the technology that would lead to the first working lie detector. The film explores his relationship with his wife, Elizabeth, and his girlfriend, Olive. However, unlike so many husbands and wives with extramarital lovers, the relationship between the three people was entirely ethical. There were no secrets between the Marstons; even after William‘s unexpectedly early death in 1947, the two women continued to live together for decades afterwards.

Rebecca Hall (The Town, Iron Man 3) plays Marston’s wife, and Bella Heathcoate (The Neon Demon) plays Olive, the college senior who shakes up their lives. The film sheds light on how Dr. Marston was inspired by these two amazing women to create Wonder Woman, perhaps the single most popular feminist icon of all time, and how his believe in submission to a benevolent authority (by way of heavy S&M imagery in his Wonder Woman stories) pushed the limits of what the comic books of the time would allow. The film is directed by Angela Robinson; thanks to her work on shows like True Blood and The L Word, as well as the cult comedy film, D.E.B.S., she certainly knows her way around non-comformative sexuality.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women hits theaters on October 27.