After leading Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” to an impressive limited opening this weekend, Ben Stiller is already lining up his next projects with a notable contender being Cameron Crowe’s film based on Benjamin Mee’s autobiography, “We Bought A Zoo.”
The project centers on a family’s takeover of an dwindling zoo in Southwest England and is reportedly set to begin production this September with Crowe currently touching up the original script by Aline Brosh McKenna (“The Devil Wears Prada”). Stiller and Crowe had been set to team on the long-gestating Hawaii-set dramedy “Deep Tiki” which is probably all but dead now so a “reunion” of sorts on ‘Zoo’ makes sense.
It’s far from a safe bet though as Stiller has with two other projects vying for attention. The actor-director is slated to begin production next month on the Mark Friedman scribed “Help Me Spread Goodness” which centers on a Chicago banker who chases down the perpetrator of a Nigerian internet scam he fell victim to. Stiller is producing and directing on the project, which will shoot on location in the United States and Africa, though there is still no confirmed word yet on casting.
Stiller is also lining up an adaptation of the children’s book, “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” which follows a family’s endeavor to live with twelve penguins they find. Sure, it might be the most uninspiring but, as with many other actors, Stiller has two kids aged 5 and 8 and may want to make films his kids can enjoy. With all due respect, we’d much rather see him take on Crowe’s film, which will be his first since 2005’s “Elizabethtown.”
With the three aforementioned pics on Stiller’s immediate radar, the likes of a ‘Zoolander’ sequel and Mark Romanek‘s “The Voices” looks at least a year away if they’re happening at all. Stiller also has his little cash-cow “Little Fockers” coming out later this year.