Yesterday we reported that Warner Bros. had passed on Ron Howard’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. Howard, who has been courting Russell Crowe (who previously starred in Howard’s A Beautiful Mind) for the role of the Gunslinger, a role that was previously bestowed to Javier Bardem when that project was being shopped at Universal. So with two studios having already passed on The Dark Tower, some might think that this project may be too much to handle.

After all the deal does call for the adaptation to start off as a film, then switch over to the small screen for a short televised series run, then turned back into a movie finale. The financial implications would hurt the distributing studio if the first part of the planned adaptation failed. So it’s really no surprise that the studios didn’t want to take the risk. Well you might think that other studios might not want to even touch this project with a 10-foot pole, but Media Rights Capital has stepped in as the next studio hoping to make Howard’s dream come true.

According to Deadline, “MRC’s Modi Wiczyk is a big fan of the Stephen King novel series,” and the company is eager to capitalize on the positive momentum they got from developing and financing the Seth MacFarlane-directed summer sleeper hit Ted with Mark Wahlberg. The studio’s next major film release will be Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium with Matt Damon.

Of all the studios that The Dark Tower could have gone to, it’s likely that it will get distributed by MRC, now that’s quite surprising to hear since the two studios that passed on the film are much more high profile studios than MRC. Still this news has to put a tiny smile on Howard’s face as the report says that a deal is likely to be made soon.

Also, a small bit of irony, MRC has a distribution deal with Universal. But there is no word yet on whether or not Universal will distribute the movie if MRC does pick up The Dark Tower.

We’ll be sure to keep you posted should any news arrive.

[Source: Deadline]