Gal Gadot Nearing Deal To Star In Hedy Lamarr Limited Series From Sarah Treem For Showtime

Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is close to a deal to headline and executive produce a limited series about film actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, from The Affair co-creator/executive producer Sarah Treem, The Handmaid’s Tale producer Warren Littlefield and Endeavor Content.

Treem is in talks to write the limited series, which will chronicle the life and career of Lamarr, to be played by Gadot.

Israel-born Gadot had been looking to do a project about Lamarr, who has been referred to as a real-life Jewish “Wonder Woman” whose inventions led to WiFi and GPS.

I hear Treem came up with an idea on how to tell Lamarr’s remarkable story that Gadot sparked to. The project was taken to Showtime through Treem’s relationship there. She is the showrunner of The Affair, which is wrapping its fourth season and heading into its fifth and final season. Treem co-created the praised drama series with Hagai Levi.

Gadot will executive produce the limited series with her husband and producing partner Jaron Varsano, along with Treem and Littlefield. Endeavor Content is the studio.

Reps for Showtime, Gadot and Treem declined comment.

UPDATE: When Showtime’s top executives were asked about the project during the network’s executive session, they would not discuss it because they did not have a closed deal but president of programming Gary Levine said, “If it comes together, we will be extremely happy.”

Austrian-born Lamarr started her career in Czechoslovakia in the early 1930s before leaving her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and moving to Paris. In London, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood, where she starred in Algiers (1938), Boom Town (1940), I Take This Woman (1940), Comrade X (1940), Come Live With Me (1941), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941) and Samson and Delilah (1949).

Lamarr (born Hedwig Kiesler) also was an inventor. At the beginning of World War II, she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency. Aspects of their work were incorporated into Bluetooth technology and WiFi. In recognition of their contributions, the duo were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

The project comes on the heels of the acclaimed documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story, which was released  last year.

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Gadot became known worldwide as the title character in Warner Bros’ Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman and is currently in production on the sequel Wonder Woman 1984, again with Jenkins at the helm. She has also signed a deal with Warner Bros for My Dearest Fidel, a fact-based tale that is a potential star vehicle for her, and also is set to star opposite Dwayne Johnson in Red Notice, the international action thriller that Rawson Marshall Thurber is directing from his original script. Gadot is repped by WME and attorney Robert Offer.

Treem, whose series credits also include In Treatment, House of Cards and How To Make It in America, is repped by WME and Schreck Rose.