The director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room has agreed to make a series about corporate corruption for CBS Paramount Television.

Alex Gibney – who made the documentary film about Enron's crisis – is to co-write and direct the project looking at middle-class crime. It will be based around a low-level civil servant who uncovers corporate scandal.

The director said his inspiration was events at Enron and other companies, such as Tyco and WorldCom, in recent years.

"I felt that the wild thing about these stories was that truth was stranger than fiction," he explained. "At the same time, there's a territory in there you cannot explore in nonfiction that is left to explore in fiction that is exciting to do."