It has been six years since Cameron Crowe’s last feature film (Elizabethtown), but this fall he is returning to the big screen with  his film adaptation of Benjamin Mee’s autobiographical book We Bought A Zoo.  The film stars Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Hayden Church, Elle Fanning, and more (including J.B. Smoove aka. Leon from Curb Your Enthusiasm).  Here is the Publishers Weekly’s synopsis of the book,

Between his wife Katherine’s diagnosis of glioblastoma and her quiet death less than three years later, Mee (The Call of DIY), his siblings and his mother bought a bedraggled zoo, complete with decaying buildings, a ragtag group of animals, an eclectic staff and a reputation that had been quickly going to the wolves. In this occasionally charming (to his children: Quiet. Daddy’s trying to buy a zoo) but overly wordy book, Mee writes about caring for his dying wife and their two young children, dealing with Code Red emergencies (when a dangerous animal escapes its confines), hiring staff, learning about his new two- and four-footed charges and setting his sights on refurbishing his zoo into a sanctuary for breeding and raising endangered animals. Mee tends to meander with too-long explanations for one-sentence points, and the awe he feels about each individual animal is repetitive. Coupled with Britishisms that are never explained and a curious lack of varied wild animal stories, this book that was obviously meant to make animal lovers roar with pleasure will only make them whine with frustration.

We Bought A Zoo is set for a December 23 release by 20th Century Fox.

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