Mining magnate Gina Rinehart is taking urgent legal action in the NSW Supreme Court in a bid to force Channel Nine to hand over a copy of part two of House of Hancock.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday. Mrs Rinehart's barrister, Tom Blackburn, SC, asked the court to grant an application for urgent preliminary discovery against Nine Entertainment Co.

Mr Blackburn said Mrs Rinehart's lawyers wanted to view the program to see if there were grounds to seek an urgent injunction to prevent the series from going to air as scheduled on Sunday night.

Mr Blackburn said the application was based primarily on two causes of action: malicious falsehood and defamation.

In addition, it could be argued that professional paid actors portraying real-life people could be breaching Australian consumer law.

Justice Peter Garling asked if he meant that an actor could be "engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct" under section 18 of the Trade Practices Act.

Mr Blackburn agreed, although he said there were no authorities.

"It's a novel proposal," Justice Garling said, adding that, if such an argument applied to "all the Kings of England ... it would shut down all of Shakespeare's plays".

"They are all dead, your honour," Mr Blackburn replied.

Mr Blackburn said that, on Wednesday, Channel Nine's A Current Affair aired a segment on the House of Hancock series, which gave Mrs Rinehart "enormous cause for concern".

The segment, which host Tracey Grimshaw described as a "war of words" between Mrs Rinehart and Channel Nine, featured an interview with House of Hancock producer Michael Cordell.

In it, Mr Cordell said the two-part series was made up.

"We are making a drama, we are not making a documentary," Mr Cordell said.

Mr Cordell also said, "and parts of it we didn't even have to make up".

Mr Blackburn said to Justice Garling, "We ask, what about the rest of it?"

He said Mrs Rinehart also took exception to her family's story being compared to US soap operas Dynasty and Dallas.

Mr Blackburn said Mrs Rinehart's advisers had written to Channel Nine after part one went to air, citing numerous inaccuracies. A preview copy of part two had also been requested but not provided.

He flagged an application for a pre-publication injunction.

Justice Garling said it was an unusual request, as the usual course of action was to wait until broadcast or publication, and then sue for defamation.

But Mr Blackburn said Mrs Rinehart was not content to do that because of "the seriousness of the falsehoods that are apparently about to be broadcast".

Mr Blackburn said that, given Ms Rinehart's business reputation, it was likely she could suffer financial damage if the episode went to air

"If her business suffers, it's highly likely that she will also suffer. And that she will suffer financially," he said.

Peter Gray, SC, for Nine Entertainment Co, said his client opposed the application for preliminary discovery.

"There is only the weakest, flimsiest basis for the proposition that this unseen episode may found a claim for relief in defamation," Mr Gray said.

There was also no basis for a claim for injurious falsehood, given there was no material indicating malice or financial loss on his client's behalf, he said.

Further, he said the imputations that Mrs Rinehart's lawyers were claiming might arise "are at the low end of seriousness in the world of defamation".

And the history of the Hancock-Rinehart family disputes had been written about extensively over the past 20 years, Mr Gray said.

Justice Garling said Mr Gray did not have to address the consumer protection law argument floated by Mr Blackburn.

The hearing continues.

Letter to Nine

In a letter sent to the Nine Entertainment Co earlier this week, a lawyer for Mrs Rinehart, Mark Wilks, alleged that some of the dialogue in the program had been "just made up".

"The first instalment of House of Hancock contained a number of entirely fictitious matters concerning our client," Mr Wilks alleged.

"It includes ... a conversation with our client's father which did not occur (and which your client has just made up) in which Mr Hancock tells our client that her then future husband did not love her and that no one could love her, implying something seriously wrong with our client."

The letter also singles out the depiction of a "vulgar and garish wedding" between Mrs Rinehart and her late husband Frank, alleging it was "demeaning" to the couple.

Mr Wilks argued that Mrs Rinehart had also been depicted as "callous" toward her mother and that Mr Hancock had been portrayed as saying "defamatory things about his daughter".

In demanding a copy of the second episode, the letter also relies heavily on comments made by entertainment reporter Peter Ford on Nine's A Current Affair and Fairfax Media's 3AW.

It also quotes Mr Cordell on A Current Affair.

"Yesterday your client broadcast an item on A Current Affair about the second instalment of House of Hancock," Mr Wilks wrote.

"In answer to a question: 'Did you make this stuff up?', one of the producers, Mr Cordell, replies evasively, 'We're making a drama, we're not making a documentary.' The item then quotes with approval a critic, Mr Ford, who describes it as a 'ripping yarn' and adds 'you could not make this stuff up, it's straight out of Dynasty', which indicates in fact that it is made up.

"Given your client's admissions that the programs contain untruths, and Peter Ford's boast after seeing the film on A Current Affair that the second program is 'even more explosive', and that our client should 'make plans to go out to dinner', we have reason to think that the second program may be defamatory of our client, contain injurious falsehoods about her, and involve your client in an accessorial breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

"We also refer to the following comments made by Mr Ford this morning on the 3AW Breakfast show:

● 'If Mrs Rinehart was unhappy with what she saw last Sunday night, she definitely should go out for dinner next Sunday night, because it's like 20 times worse about her.'

● 'They make her look like an obsessed, vindictive shrew. I felt very sorry for her. I actually - I don't know the woman at all, I've never met her - but I can't believe that somebody could truly be that sour about life, but that's the picture they have painted of her'; and

● 'There's a very final scene in The House of Hancock, if you stick around to watch it, I reckon your jaw will drop.'

"As noted, Mr Ford is put forward by your client itself as a reliable commentator in the A Current Affair segment."

The letter concludes with a demand for a copy of the second episode.

2 million viewers

The first instalment of the two-part drama drew more than 2 million viewers across the metropolitan and regional areas on Sunday, making it the second-most watched show of the evening.

The conclusion is due to screen at 8.45pm on Sunday.

Produced by Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder and actor Claudia Karvan, it is set primarily in the years between 1980 and 2002.

The focus is the epic feud between the late Lang Hancock (played by Sam Neill), his wife Rose Lacson (Peta Sergeant) and Mrs Rinehart, his daughter (Mandy McElhinney).

Channel Nine has declined to comment on Mrs Rinehart's legal action.

In a statement released after the first episode was broadcast, Tad Watroba, executive director of Mrs Rinehart's company Hancock Prospecting, said: "Channel Nine has seemingly gone out of its way to cause undue damage and upset to those currently living and the memory of those no longer with us.

"Despite repeatedly bringing it to Nine CEO David Gyngell's attention, many scenes broadcast last night were fictitious, unfounded or grossly distorted, and some simply never occurred."

Mr Watroba said Mr Hancock and Mrs Rinehart had a "loving" relationship. He said Mrs Rinehart took exception to several scenes including the one in which Mr Hancock tells his daughter that no one could love her.

"Mr Hancock never told Mrs Rinehart that no one could ever love her, or that her husband never loved her. The scene was made up and untrue. Her relationship with Mr Frank Rinehart was very loving, and her mother loved her son-in-law also.

"Nor was there a scene where Mr Hancock said terrible things about his daughter's appearance."

- with Michael Lallo