SHE runs about in leather knickers and knee high boots but Wonder Woman has managed to strike a blow for women in the battle against Hollywood misogyny.

With a kickass female lead and – unusually - a female director, the blockbuster has run creative and financial rings round many of its superhero predecessors.

Confounding sceptics who claimed a female superhero film would flop at the box office, the Warner Bros epic broke domestic records on its launch in the US last weekend with its success set to be consolidated worldwide in the next few weeks.

Directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Israeli Gal Gadot, the movie took in £78.09m at the US/Canadian box office on its first weekend, making it the biggest domestic debut by a woman director.

It was also number one in the UK, taking in £6.18m over its first weekend – although that fell well short of the £13.5m UK opening weekend for Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Fifty Shades of Grey two years ago.

HOW BIG A DEAL IS THIS?

IT is a phenomenal achievement for Wonder Woman, considering that Hollywood has, until recently, regarded female action heroes as box office poison.

While Catwoman and Elektra did bomb on their release in 2004 and 2005 respectively, so have plenty of movies starring male superheroes.

Yet 39 movies featuring male superheroes from the worlds of Marvel and DC Comics have been churned out by Hollywood in the last 10 years with not one boasting a female lead.

“You have male-led superhero movies that bombed as well, but they kept getting made,” pointed out Alisha Grauso of website Movie Pilot. “But when a female-led superhero movie flopped, it’s because, ‘Oh, people don’t want to see a female-led superhero movie.’”

Of over 300 live action movies with a budget of at least £75m only three of them have had a female director.

Indeed Wonder Woman is the first film Jenkins has directed for 13 years when Monster gained an Oscar for Charlize Theron.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

THE challenge for Wonder Woman was to attract a female audience without alienating the fanboy base of the comic book movie.

The success of films like Hunger Games and the recent Star War movies with their female action heroes has shown there is an appetite for such films but the Superhero genre was seen as the final frontier, even though women occasionally outnumber men at comic book conventions.

So far it looks as though Wonder Woman is appealing to both genders with females making up just over half of audiences so far, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

It has also proved to be popular with critics who have praised it for its creativity and it is holding a 93 per cent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregation site.

Social media has gone crazy about the new film with it being hailed as one of the best examples of the genre.

Earning just less than the £80m gained in 2008 by Iron Man, one of the best reviewed comic book films ever made, Wonder Woman beat Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men:Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy on its first weekend.

HOW BIG IS IT GOING TO BE?

WHAT’S more, all the positive reviews point to it continuing to dominate the box office – unlike the other three instalments in the DC Extended Universe which suffered a sharp decline after their opening weekend.

“Wonder Woman is the DC Comics movie that everyone has been waiting for and it does not disappoint,” said media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

He said the movie “effectively ushers in a new era for Warner Bros. DC universe that of late has been a brand in search of the perfect movie.”

The film is set in the early 20th century with Wonder Woman leaving the island of Themyscira to try to stop World War I.

“This movie resonates globally,” said Jeff Goldstein, domestic distribution boss of Warner Bros. “Wonder Woman is a woman for our time, and her message and the tone that Patty Jenkins set forth connects with now.”

Comic commentator Rob Salkowitz said Jenkins and Gadot had “not only held their own; they upped the ante and changed the conversation”.

“The question is no longer whether a well-done woman-led action/superhero movie can find an audience. Now the mostly male-dominated Justice League project faces pressure to live up to the standards set by DC’s latest entry.”

IS EVERYONE HAPPY?

THERE is only one country so far that has not received Wonder Woman with open arms and that’s Lebanon where it has been banned because Gadot is Israeli. The movie had already passed the usual censorship procedures but a government committee imposed a ban two hours before it was due to debut, despite the fact that Gadot’s Wonder Woman had already been seen in Batman vs Superman last year.

A campaign has been running in Lebanon against the new film because Gadot served in the Israeli army and voiced support for the forces in their military offensive against Gaza.

The ban was criticised by Lebanese blogger Elie Fares who said: “You’d think if they want their ban to make the least of sense, they’d have done it a year ago when the movie’s first trailer was released, not in the week of its release after it’s been given a green light, handling massive financial losses to the Lebanese company that won its distribution rights.”

Elsewhere the film’s success makes a sequel look likely with Jenkins keen to set the next one in the US.

“I’m excited for her to come to America and become the Wonder Woman we are all familiar with,” she said. “I can’t wait to spring forward with who she is and have another great standalone superhero film.”