Cameron Crowe has largely flown under the radar since the 2005 release of “Elizabethtown” which was roundly rejected by fans, critics and audiences. He was at one time attached to direct “Deep Tiki” with Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon, but that was postponed in late 2008 and is presumed dead. Last year, he directed the video for “The Fixer” for Pearl Jam, and is apparently working on a documentary about the group to coincide with their 20th anniversary in 2011 but we haven’t heard much since the announcement.
However, Vulture does have some concrete news today as they reveal that Crowe is circling “We Bought A Zoo.” The apparently strong script by Aline Brosh McKenna (“The Devil Wears Prada”) is based on the memoir by Benjamin Mee about the family’s adventures running a wildlife preserve in the English countryside. Here’s the synopsis of the book from Amazon:
When writer Mee’s father died, his mother needed to sell the house and move to a smaller place—so the entire family decided to buy a zoo. Mee’s sister had seen an advertisement for the sale of the Dartmoor Wildlife Park, a small zoo in Devonshire in the southwest of England. After a long series of negotiations, licensing snafus, and the inevitable family conflicts, the author, his mother, and his brother moved into the park’s rundown house and started running a zoo. Though they owned the grounds and its 200 animals outright, they still had to pay 20 staff members, feed the animals, and upgrade the grounds. During the first week, a jaguar escaped, and the author and his brother began to realize what they’d gotten themselves into. Through eradicating the plague of rats, clearing out years of rubbish to reveal usable buildings, and battling with banks for operating expenses, the author and his staff gradually pulled the zoo back from the brink of closure. The emotional appeal of the zoo’s rescue is wonderfully limned in Mee’s practical, good-humored prose.
It’s definitely new territory for Crowe, and if you’re surprised he’s looking at someone else’s script, just remember in this climate it’s difficult for anyone to get studio projects off the ground based on original material, particularly if your last film was a bomb. That being said, Crowe is expected to take a pass at the script should he sign on, most likely adding his voice to the material. It’s definitely an ambitious story, but we’re glad to see Crowe poking around potential new directing gigs.
We still have hopes for “Deep Tiki” happening one day. It was an odd, but familiar project for Cameron Crowe and was like “Jerry Maguire,” as set in Hawaii set amongst the backdrop of a covert satellite launch and with Hawaiian mystical spiritualism strewn throughout. We wrote a pretty in-depth script review many moons ago if you’re curious for more details.