We Bought a Zoo is a 2011 American biographical comedy drama film loosely based on the 2008 memoir of the same name by Benjamin Mee.
The film also stars Scarlett Johansson, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit, Elle Fanning, Colin Ford, and John Michael Higgins.
When his 14-year-old son Dylan is expelled from school, Benjamin realizes that the family's current situation is not working, they are all grieving, and everything around them reminds them of Katherine.
Walter Ferris, a strict USDA inspector, arrives for a surprise visit and makes a list of repairs that would cost over $100,000.
Prior to the zoo's grand opening, the facility passes a stringent inspection by Ferris, who grudgingly wishes them good luck.
Dylan discovers that a fallen tree has blocked the access road with a large crowd of visitors waiting behind it.
[8][9] In May 2010, Cameron Crowe agreed to direct the 20th Century Fox adaptation of Benjamin Mee's memoir We Bought a Zoo.
[1] In August 2011, it was announced that Icelandic musician Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, the lead singer of the band Sigur Rós, would be composing the music scores for We Bought a Zoo.
[11] Director Crowe described the choice as "only natural", since "Jónsi has been a part of the making of We Bought A Zoo from the very beginning".
[14] We Bought a Zoo grossed a total of $2,984,875 on its opening day in the U.S. box office, making it the sixth highest-grossing film that weekend.
[2] It is one of only twelve feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and still improve on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 41.4% from $9,360,434 to $13,238,241.
The website's critical consensus reads, "We Bought a Zoo is a transparently cloying effort by director Cameron Crowe, but Matt Damon makes for a sympathetic central character.
[18] The New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis criticized Crowe's direction, writing that it "makes the escalating tension between Benjamin and Dylan the story's soft center," while keeping "the brutality of illness and death... safely off-screen".
She also noted that the film uses "classic movie logic", specifically pointing out the way that Benjamin quits his job and that he "doesn't agonize about how he'll keep his children housed, fed and clothed".
On the other hand, Dargis wrote that "you may not buy his [Cameron's] happy endings, but it's a seductive ideal when all of God's creatures, great and small, buxom and blond, exist in such harmony.
""[19] The Hollywood Reporter commented that the film "has heart, humanity and a warmly empathetic central performance from Matt Damon", although it "doesn't dodge the potholes of earnest sentimentality and at times overplays the whimsy"; ultimately concluding that "Cameron Crowe's film has some rough edges, but it ultimately delivers thanks to Matt Damon's moving performance.
[28] Benjamin and his family made a specific and informed decision to buy a zoo: in the film, it occurred as a result of finding a house they liked.