It’s been six years since Cameron Crowe‘s disappointing “Elizabethtown” but if 2011 goes as planned, it should mark one helluva comeback year for the director. With three movies slated to hit before the end of 2011, he’s never been busier. His Elton John/Leon Russell documentary “The Union” recently opened the Tribeca Film Festival, he’s got “Pearl Jam Twenty” coming in September and he’ll cap off the year with the sure to be Oscar contending “We Bought A Zoo.”
Based on the memoir by Benjamin Mee, with a script from “The Devil Wears Prada” writer Aline Brosh McKenna, the story follows Mee (Matt Damon), a single father who attempts to fulfill his late wife’s wish of moving their family to the titular animal sanctuary. Damon is joined by Scarlett Johansson as the love interest Kelly, Thomas Haden Church as his brother, Angus MacFadyen as the head zookeeper and Elle Fanning and Patrick Fugit as other zoo employees. John Michael Higgins will play a zoo inspector, “cursed with an active and loud stomach,” while J.B. Smoove, will round out the cast. While we’ll have to wait for official stills or trailers, this early peek behind the curtain will do for now as Crowe has been posting behind-the-scenes set pics from the film to his website over the past month or so and we’ve rounded them up here.
“We Bought A Zoo” opens on December 23rd. Check out more pics below. [Cameron Crowe via ONTD]
