By 2000, director Cameron Crowe had demonstrated an ability to put a new spin on teen romantic comedies with "Say Anything," capture the zeitgeist in "Singles," be a critics darling with "Almost Famous," and gain significant financial and critical acclaim all at once in "Jerry Maguire." However, after the mixed response to "Vanilla Sky," the writer-director entered a fallow period ... and that's when he made "We Bought a Zoo."
Smarting after a critical drubbing for "Elizabethtown," Crowe didn't make a movie for over six years. In fact, he wasn't actually the one who developed "We Bought a Zoo" initially, although he did make extensive rewrites to his predecessor Aline Brosh McKenna's script when he came on. He was the director to bring Matt Damon into the fold, successfully pitching the actor with a collection of music that Crowe argued evoked the sensibility of the film he wanted to make.
Interestingly, while critics hit it with average to mixed reviews, audiences rewarded the film with over two times its budget in ticket sales. Damon also performed above the reviews as Benjamin Mee, the widowed dad who, you guessed it, goes out and buys himself a zoo. Rotten Tomatoes' summary of reviews singles out the actor for anchoring the film around a "sympathetic central character," which is about all you need from a movie about a guy who, well, buys a zoo.
