‘Scarlett’ Fever Bidding Frenzy Will End Today : Movies: A chance to get the film and TV rights to the ‘GWTW’ sequel has offers ‘pouring in from all over the world.’

The William Morris talent agency stops taking bids today for rights to make the longest-awaited sequel in Hollywood history--”Scarlett,” the best-selling follow-up to “Gone With the Wind.”

A little more than a month after the agency began to solicit offers from 100 producers, studios, networks and other “selected buyers,” it is ready to sell film or TV rights to Alexandra Ripley’s critically-drubbed novel that takes up the stories of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara where Margaret Mitchell left them more than half a century ago.

William Morris and the Mitchell estate expect to name the winner of the rights next week.

The talent agency, which represents the estate, has set a minimum bid of $2 million plus 5% of the gross from any feature film or TV miniseries. Interest, according to William Morris vice president Irene Webb, has been intense.

“I have never seen anything like this,” said the agent, who has been involved with film-rights sales for numerous best-sellers, including “Postcards From the Edge” and “Sleeping With the Enemy.” “Offers have been pouring in from all over the world. There are even international consortiums of money coming up bidding for the rights.

“It will probably be the biggest sale ever.”

Although the book was published by Time Warner’s Warner Books subsidiary and excerpted in the conglomerate’s Life magazine, Morris’ Webb claims none of the bidders, including Warner Bros., was allowed to see the complete manuscript before its Sept. 25 publication.

Copies of books are usually circulated to producers and studios before the publication date to generate interest. Other than the short Life excerpt, however, “we kept it a complete secret,” said Webb. Letters went out soliciting bids after Life’s September issue hit newsstands.

“It was agreed that nobody would show the book or reveal the plot. Even so, we still had people bidding before the book was released,” she said.

Warner bought rights to publish “Scarlett” for $4.9 million. U.S. sales of the hardcover book, which has sat atop best-seller lists for a month, have topped 1 million copies. Worldwide sales have exceeded 2 million copies.

The sale of the movie rights is one more step for the novel that got its start several years ago when lawyers representing the Mitchell estate won a 12-year battle with MGM over sequel rights to “Gone With the Wind.”

The enormously successful 1939 film starring Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable was directed by Victor Fleming and produced by legendary film mogul David O. Selznick. He had to release the original film through MGM in order to use the studio’s biggest star, Gable, in the leading role. MGM reissued the film through the years. Cable TV mogul Ted Turner acquired ownership of the original film when he bought the MGM library in 1986.

William Morris’ Webb declined to name any individuals or firms that have submitted offers. But she noted that the winning bidder will buy the right “to one movie”--either a feature or a TV project. “There will not be sequel rights attached to this sale,” Webb said.

Webb said money is not the only factor that the agency is weighing. “We want to make sure that the estate of Margaret Mitchell gets the most out of it, and so it’s not just about how much money is offered,” she said. “It will also depend on who is making the bid and the quality of their work and their experience. All of that will be taken into consideration.”

Agency officials expect to meet this weekend with representatives of the estate to consider some of the more substantial offers and to announce the winning bid sometime next week.

“It’s coming down to the wire after all this time,” Webb said. “This is the book that everybody wanted to read and it will be the movie that everyone will want to see.”