Next stop Narnia in fantasy film frenzy

The classic Narnia children's series by C. S. Lewis is due to follow in the Hollywood footsteps of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

The children's books are the latest British fantasy novels to be taken to the big screen, with a start-up film company buying the rights from the estate of author C. S. Lewis.

Walden Media, a New York-based company, plans to have the best-known of the seven books, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, in cinemas within three years.

Lewis' stepson, Douglas Gresham, is to oversee the development of the film as part of the deal struck with the Lewis family and the firm.

The bid to put the books on screen is the latest in a long run of deals with Hollywood studios.

Both Paramount and Disney have been involved in attempts to make films out of the best-selling books, which have enthralled children since the 1950s and have been serialised by the BBC.

Lewis wrote the chronicles of Narnia while lecturing at Oxford University, in a bid to get his Christian message across to children.

The books are about children who visit a magical land called Narnia, inhabited by dwarfs, centaurs, talking animals and a Christ-like lion called Aslan.

Other books in the series are Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and his Boy, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle.

Lewis and Tolkien were members of a circle of writers, known as the Inklings, who met to discuss Old English myth and legend in an Oxford pub.