Cineplex Magazine December2011

Scarlett Johansson and
Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo
CoMing To aMeriCa
es, We Bought a Zoo, about a guy (matt Damon) with no
experience as a zookeeper who buys and runs a zoo in
Southern California, is based on a true story. But don’t go looking
for that zoo in Cali, or anywhere in the States, for that matter.
The Cameron Crowe-directed film is based on Benjamin Mee’s
experience of buying the dilapidated Dartmoor Zoological Park in Plymouth,
England. When screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada)
wrote the script, she moved the story from England to Boston, and then director
Cameron Crowe pushed it another 5,000 km to the west.
So why not set the film in England? Crowe explains on his website,
“I wanted to work with Matt Damon, and I think he gets things done pretty
well with his natural accent.”
You can, however, make a virtual trip to Dartmoor here: www.dartmoorzoo.org. —MW
Quote Unquote
Reading the first scene
gave me a panic attack and
I thought if something can
make me feel that much, I
have to be part of it.
—EmIly BRownIng
on Sleeping Beauty
12 | Cineplex Magazine | december 2011
Jeremy Irvine with
one of the Joeys
You
Can’T Tell.
reallY.
We sWear.
This horse is wearing a piece.
Director Steven Spielberg had
a unique challenge when casting
War Horse, specifically in casting
the horse. He needed to find an
equine with a distinctive starshaped
white blaze to play Joey,
the beloved pony who goes off to
war. Or, rather he had to find 13
horses with identical star-shaped
white blazes, since Joey’s played
by 13 different horses.
The solution? Thirteen horses
had stars shaved into their
foreheads, and then white
hairpieces attached with toupee
adhesive. —MW