With a long-held reputation as a well-respected indie and arthouse distrib, Metrodome could be on the verge of breaking into the bigtime following its acquisition, announced at Cannes, by Romanian media company Media Pro from previous German owners TV Loonland.

One of the largest media groups in Eastern Europe, with operations in film and TV production as well as extensive distribution and exhibition divisions, Media Pro -- and more pertinently its coin -- could help Metrodome become a real player in the ever-congested U.K. film scene.

Metrodome execs are ramping up plans to expand into production, with the aim of making one or two features a year as well as branching out into TV production.

The company's ambitious topper Peter Urie, who has a background in production, also is looking to acquire an existing distribution network in France or build up Metrodome's own distribution network there.

While the idea of building a pan-European distribution has been very much en vogue of late -- witness the efforts alternately by Wild Bunch, Studio Canal and Canadian-based Alliance Films' European bouquets -- what makes the Metrodome-Media Pro experiment so interesting and different is their concentration on the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, where Media Pro already has a strong presence.

"Everyone's going into France, Spain and Italy, but we're already a mature company in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and, of course, Romania," Urie says. "We have a shot at competing with the minimajors. We have our own production facilities, thanks to Media Pro's studio and soundstages, which is one of the biggest in Europe. We want to get into the pre-buy business, and we have the capability to produce our own projects."

Metrodome will be looking to produce English-language features in the $3 million-$10 million budget range, and already has two projects in development.

Thanks to a shrewd pickup and canny marketing campaign, the company can also lay claim to owning the highest-selling war film on DVD in the U.K. of the last few years.

U.S. helmer Ryan Little's little-known 2003 WWII drama "Saints and Soldiers" recently crossed the 500,000-unit threshold in the U.K., no small feat given that Urie acquired rights to the unheralded pic for less than $50,000.

"The film hasn't done anything like its U.K. business anywhere else in the world, including the U.S.," Urie says. "We put more money than we should have to market it, spending about $100,000 for a direct-to-DVD release, but it had something about it, and it connected with audiences."

Whether Metrodome can translate that unlikely success onto the bigger arena remains to be seen. Betting on the emerging East European markets to deliver is a big risk, and the pan-European distribution model is already looking very congested.

But if Urie and Media Pro majority owner Adrian Sarbu do pull it off, they may well find themselves with an unlikely success story on their hands.