Ever since HBO found success with Game of Thrones in the 2010s, every network and streaming service has wanted their own mega-hit high fantasy series. Netflix has taken a couple of stabs at it, mostly without success; Shadow and Bone was canceled after two seasons and The Witcher has received a very mixed reception.

However, Netflix is breaking new ground with its next attempt, which adapts an old favorite in a way that's never been done before.

The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the OG fantasy epics, second in influence only to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and that's an arguable point. Author C.S. Lewis published the first Narnia book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in 1950. It's about four siblings who go to stay with a middle-aged professor at his country estate while London is being bombed during World War II. They find a door to the magical land of Narnia hidden in a wardrobe, and go on to have spectacular adventures therein.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is easily the most famous Narnia book, but Lewis wrote six more before the series was over. The Pevensie siblings would return to Narnia in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader . The Silver Chair was the first of the books not to feature any of the Pevensie children, and The Last Battle brought back everyone from the previous books for an apocalyptic final act. The Horse and His Boy is a bit of a side story, since it only involves native Narnian characters rather than any visitors from our world, and The Magician's Nephew is a prequel that explains how the world of Narnia was created in the first place.

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