WE’RE BECOMING SPOILED for choice in films with a female leads.
Source: Barry Wetcher/Warner BrosThis year, Emily Blunt will star as Mary Poppins in the musical fantasy of 'Mary Poppins Returned' and an all-female cast of Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway and Rihanna, among others, will star in the action-thriller Ocean's 8.
But the film that has gotten us really excited is a biographical film about the life of Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein.
Yes, in case you didn't know, Frankenstein was written by an 18 year old woman in 1816.
18 years old! Really puts the achievements of your leaving cert into perspective...
The film follows the early life of author Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), when she met and eloped to Switzerland with the poet Percy Shelley, a married man, when she was just 18. Along with friends, they spent a summer with the famed poet Lord Byron and a competition emerged between the group of who could write the best horror story.
Mary was dismissed as having zero chance of winning because she was a woman.
No prizes for guessing who actually won
The novel Frankenstein was published in 1818 when Mary was 20 years old. But the first edition didn't carry her name as publishers believed that people wouldn't buy a book by a female author. Frankenstein was such a success however, that Mary's name was published on the second edition five years later.
After Mary publishes the book under her married name, she has a fight on her hands to prove that it was her, and not her husband, who penned the famous novel.
In case you think times have changed, the reason that J.K. Rowling went by her initials was because publishers didn't think that boys would buy a book by an author called 'Joanne Rowling'.
So much for not judging a book by its cover.
Mary Shelley is directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, who is best known for her 2012 film Wadjda, which was the first-ever feature from a female Saudi Arabian director. The film stars the ethereal but fiery Elle Fanning as the titular character and Douglas Booth plays her husband Percy.
Did you spot Maisie Williams aka Arya aka A-Girl-Has-No-Name as Mary's friend in the trailers?
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