Dartmoor Zoo gets Hollywood's animal magic

21 January 2012 4:11 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

We Bought A Zoo, Benjamin Mee's striking memoir of his life as a bereaved single father in charge of lions, tigers and bears, is now a major film starring Matt Damon

Life has not taken a predictable path for Benjamin Mee. As a single father bringing up two young children, he did not expect to be running a failing zoo full of dangerous animals – and he certainly did not expect to end up being played by Hollywood star Matt Damon, with Scarlett Johansson cast in the role of his love interest.

Yet this is the unlikely way it has worked out for the 46-year-old widower from Surrey, now the director of Dartmoor Zoological Park and author of the bestselling book We Bought A Zoo – "the amazing true story of a young family, a broken down zoo and the 200 wild animals that changed their lives". The details of Mee's cruel »

- Vanessa Thorpe

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