How does Netflix's The School for Good and Evil differ from the book?
Netflix's newest fantasy movie The School for Good and Evil is straight out of fairytale, literally.
The movie starring Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron, Sophia Anne Caruso and Sofia Wylie tells the story of two best friends Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie) who are dreaming of different lives. Sophie wants to be a princess, Agatha a witch. One night they are transported to the School for Good and Evil, where students are trained to become the heroes and villains of fairytales.
The women are placed in the opposite school to the one they think they belong in - Sophie ends up in the School of Evil and Agatha in the School of Good. They soon begin to realise everything is not quite what it seems when an evil force threatens the school.
The School for Good and Evil is based on a series of six books of the same name by Soman Chainani. But how different is the book to the movie? And what things have been kept the same? This is everything we know.
How does The School for Good and Evil differ from the book it was based on?
Netflix's The School for Good and Evil is based on a series of novels of the same name by Soman Chainani, with the majority of the film being inspired by the first book.
The first book was published in 2013, with the final novel in the series One True King coming out in 2020.
The School for Good and Evil's director Paul Feig has said himself and the crew picked and chose elements from the original novel to include within the movie, as to include everything would cost "a trillion dollars".
They looked at including the key elements the fans were really passionate about and storylines which would advance the characters.
He told IGN: "It's all based on the story, obviously, because it’s about the characters on their journey and making sure that that's what grounds us and keeps us going.
“But then it’s about going, ‘Okay, these are the main set-pieces from the book that are important to people. These are the ones that I think we can make really cool, and really advance the story and tell the characters through them,’ and then you just apply, ‘How do we do it in a way that we haven't seen before?’ It's fun, it's a real exciting challenge."
Soman Chainani was involved in the production of the film and said he understood certain parts of the book would have to be changed to put the story on screen.
He said, as per the Radio Times: "Only a foolish author would insist on a slavish translation that speaks to no one but the most literal of readers — a reader’s imagination is usually much more vivid and precise than anything that can be put on screen."
The School for Good and Evil is available on Netflix now.
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