Will America make a film of the Enron scandal

A.� A bidding war has started between studios to make the first film on the affair. After all, it has all the ingredients Hollywood looks for in a blockbuster - drama, corruption, heroes and villains, a violent death and a mystery ending.

�

Four separate film ventures based on the multi-billion-dollar collapse of the energy company are now under way and others may soon enter the field.

�

When the debacle first broke, few thought it would become dramatic enough to be turned into an interesting film. That changed when violence and tragedy were added as company vice-chairman Cliff Baxter committed suicide in his Mercedes in January.

�

Q.� Who will make the first film

A.� One film is likely to be based on The Enron Wars, an article by Marie Bremner in the April edition of Vanity Fair.

Bremner's heroine is Jan Avery, a former accountant with Enron who noticed something amiss in the accounts as far back as 1993. Her first assignment was to justify a loss on the books of $142 million.

�

Producer Scott Rubin of Paramount has optioned the article by Bremner, who also wrote the original article on which the Oscar-winning film, The Insider, is based. That too was a story about corporate malpractice and intimidated whistle-blowers.

�

Lowell Bergman, the investigative journalist who was played by Al Pacino in The Insider, is also working as a consultant on the Enron-based drama.� Bergman has also made an Enron documentary called The Electric Cowboys. He has said the scandal has all the necessary ingredients for a film.

�

The forthcoming book, Power Failure by Mimi Swartz, is also seen as a potential basis for the film. It features prominently the Enron whistle-blower Sherron Watkins who is one of the few people to have emerged well in the scandal so far. It is being offered to film-makers as an excellent source by the ICM agency and Watkins is seen as a potential leading character.,

�

The small screen is also interested in Enron. CBS plans to make a television movie entitled The Crooked E, which is based on the book, Anatomy of Greed, by a young Enron employee called Brian Cruver.

�

�As the scandal is revealed, more characters are emerging on whom the film could focus, with Kenneth Lay and his wife Linda likely to emerge as lead roles.

�

For more film and TV questions and answers, click here

�

By Katharine MacColl