Is 'The School for Good and Evil' Based on a Book?

Move over Hogwarts, it's time for a new fantasy school to grab the attention of viewers around the world: The School for Good and Evil.

The film, also titled The School for Good and Evil, landed on Netflix on Wednesday, October 19, and it follows friends Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) who are kidnapped and taken to the aforementioned school.

Except, their education is not what viewers might expect. The students are taught how to become heroes and villains of fairytales.

The film, directed by Paul Feig also stars Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Michelle Yeoh and Laurence Fishburne, and viewers might be wondering about the inspiration behind the film.

Is 'The School for Good and Evil' Based on a Book?

The School for Good and Evil was originally created by Soman Chainani, and the film is based on his 2013 novel of the same name.

Chainani has written a young adult book series that follows the first novel, and the series is split into two trilogies known as The School Years and The Camelot Years.

The School Years trilogy begins with The School for Good and Evil and continues with A World Without Princes and The Last Ever After, while The Camelot Years follows Agatha and Sophie outside of the school and consists of the novels Quests for Glory, A Crystal of Time, and One True King.

That's not all, as Chainani recently published The Rise of the School for Good and Evil, which is a prequel to the original novel.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Chainani said that he created the series because he felt alienated by the Disney versions of fairytales that he'd grown up with.

"I wanted to get away from a storytelling structure in which there's a good guy you're supposed to empathize with and a bad guy who shows up every 10 minutes to say "boo" and then comes back to die at the end," he explained to the publication.

In an interview with Alethea Magazine, the author, while sharing how much he loves the film adaptation of his book, said that it shouldn't be expected to "replicate the experience" of reading the novel.

Chainani said: "I think that the job of a movie is to capture the spirit and still be faithful to the book. And this one absolutely is. I don't think a movie can ever replicate the experience of a book especially because if you think about how long it takes to read a book.

"We're talking about 9 to 10 hours while a movie is only two hours. So even in terms of content, you're only going to get a fifth of what the book contains.

"But this one is a beautiful adaptation and I think everyone is going to love it. However, the books and the movies are going to be two different things."

The School for Good and Evil is out on Netflix now.