AFTER Maxwell the Musical, the bizarre all singing, all dancing, tongue in cheek tribute to gargantuan publisher Robert Maxwell comes the possibility of Maxwell the Movie, a sort of Mad Max 3 with calculators.

Next month sees the latest book from prodigious scribbler Jeffrey Archer, now Lord Archer, entitled the Fourth Estate based on the press baron and his antipodean contemporary Rupert Murdoch.

Lord Archer, never short for words, gives us a new term in describing the book as his first "novelography". In the best factional tradition names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Steven Spielberg, who tackled giants of another sort in Jurassic Park, has expressed an interest in bringing the Fourth estate to the wide screen. Sir Anthony Hopkins, famous for his role as the cannibal Hannibal Lecter, is thought the most likely candidate to play Maxwell with Australian actor Sam Neill seen as a suitable Murdoch.

However, Lord Archer says that screen rights await publication of this rich man, rich man epic on May 6th. After his interpretation of arch scoundrel Richard Nixon, Sir Anthony should be well prepared for assimilating the Maxwell persona.