A RACE has emerged to tell the life of the world's richest woman on film, with news a second television mini-series about Gina Rinehart is in development.

The secret project is being developed in a joint venture between production company Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder and actor Claudia Karvan's production company for Channel Nine.

Gina Rinehart. Credit:Jim Rice

Last week another production company, Screentime, announced it was developing a six-hour mini-series about Rinehart's life, based on the best-selling biography of the mining magnate written by Fairfax journalist Adele Ferguson.

Fairfax understands the Cordell/Karvan joint venture pitched the project to Channel Nine last year and it has been in development since then. It does not yet have a title.