This Tuesday, April 3^rd We Bought a Zoo will be available on BluRay/DVD. Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) directs a story based on a memoir by British journalist, Benjamin Mee, and stars Matt Damon (Contagion), Scarlett Johansson (Iron Man 2) and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways). The movie focuses on a single dad, Benjamin Mee (portrayed by Damon), struggling to raise his two children after the loss of his wife. Hoping that a fresh start will restore their family spirit, Mee quits his job and buys an old rural house, but there’s a catch: the house is part of a zoo named the Rosemoor Animal Park, where dozens of animals reside under the care of head zookeeper Kelly Foster (Johansson) and her dedicated team. With no experience and a very tight budget, Mee sets out with the support of his family and his devoted staff to reopen the zoo. 

Featuring an incredible musical score composed by Jónsi of the band Sigur Rós, the We Bought a Zoo Blu-ray is loaded with over 2½ hours of special features including a 28-minute featurette called “The Real Mee” about the real life Benjamin Mee, giving some background on his life and the zoo.

The movie does an excellent job portraying Benjamin Mee’s experiences but his actual story is a bit more harrowing than the movie let’s on. I recently had a chance to speak with Benjamin Mee about We Bought a Zoo. He discusses how hard it really was to buy a zoo, what it was like to have Matt Damon play him on-screen, Do-It-Yourself skills, his animal wish list, close brushes with death, and about how some parts of his life were so dismal that they didn’t make it into the film.

By all rights, the title character in Disney's John Carter should need no introduction.  After all, he is the central figure in a series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs that had a profound influence on some of the most popular entertainment of the last century.  The character first appeared in serialized form a hundred years ago, in a story that would be collected as the 1917 novel A Princess of Mars.  The collected Barsoom novels – so named for what Burroughs' Martian natives call their planet – have influenced virtually every science fiction story since, at least those stories more concerned with grand adventure than scientific rigor.

Many different creative teams have attempted to adapt A Princess of Mars over the decades, and at a certain point it began to seem impossible to do justice to the story.  Today, the film finally arrives at theater across the nation.  Andrew Stanton, the Pixar director behind Finding Nemo and WALL-E, is the helmer who finally made it happen.  His take on the material stars Taylor Kitsch as Carter, a Civil War veteran who finds himself inexplicably transported to Mars, where he finds warring city-states, nine-foot tall four-armed aliens called Tharks, all manner of alien creatures, and Dejah Thoris, the princess played by Lynn Collins. 

Stanton, Kitsch, and Collins were all present, along with actors Willem Dafoe and Dominic West, at the John Carter press junket in Scottsdale, Arizona.  While most junkets take place at posh hotels in Los Angeles, this one went down against an appropriately Mars-like desert backdrop, putting everyone into a Barsoom kind of mood.  IAR sat down for roundtable interviews with Stanton and his cast, who discussed the challenges of adapting Burroughs' stories, the need for physical stamina, the demands of epic adventure, big stunts, and acting whilst wearing stilts.

Opening in theaters on March 9th is the new 3D science fantasy film John Carter, which is based on an eleven volume series of novels entitled Barsoom by legendary author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie is helmed by Academy Award winning director Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and stars Taylor Kitsch (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) in the title role. John Carter also features a supporting cast that includes Lynn Collins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3), Samantha Morton (Minority Report), Dominic West (300), Ciaran Hinds (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), Bryan Cranston (Drive), and Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).  

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had the rare chance to travel to Scottsdale, Arizona to speak with actors Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, and Dominic West about their work on John Carter. The actors discussed the new film, their characters, Kitsch's pressure to become John Carter, his first meeting with director Andrew Stanton, why Collins did not use the original source material to create her character, the film's use of visual effects, and West's attraction to playing villains.

Opening in theaters on March 9th is the new 3D science fantasy film John Carter, which is based on an eleven volume series of novels entitled Barsoom by legendary author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie is helmed by Academy Award winning director Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and stars Taylor Kitsch (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) in the title role. John Carter also features a supporting cast that includes Lynn Collins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3), Samantha Morton (Minority Report), Dominic West (300), Ciaran Hinds (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), Bryan Cranston (Drive), and Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).  

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had the rare chance to travel to Scottsdale, Arizona to speak with two-time Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe about his work on John Carter. Dafoe discussed the new film, his unique character, how he prepared physically for the role, CGI versus live action, and director Andrew Stanton's passion for the project. 

Opening in theaters on March 9th is the new 3D science fantasy film John Carter, which is based on an eleven volume series of novels entitled Barsoom by legendary author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie is helmed by Academy Award winning director Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and stars Taylor Kitsch (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) in the title role. John Carter also features a supporting cast that includes Lynn Collins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3), Samantha Morton (Minority Report), Dominic West (300), Ciaran Hinds (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), Bryan Cranston (Drive), and Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).  

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had the pleasure of traveling to Scottsdale, Arizona to speak with director Andrew Stanton about his work on John Carter. Stanton discussed the new movie, it's groundbreaking title, not compromising the original source material, making his dream project, casting Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, and the possibility of the film becoming a franchise. 

Opening in theaters on March 9th is the new 3D science fantasy film John Carter, which is based on an eleven volume series of novels entitled Barsoom by legendary author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie is helmed by Academy Award winning director Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and stars Taylor Kitsch (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) in the title role. John Carter also features a supporting cast that includes Lynn Collins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3), Samantha Morton (Minority Report), Dominic West (300), Ciaran Hinds (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), Bryan Cranston (Drive), and Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).  

IAR's very own Rocio Anica recently had a chance to speak with costume designer Mayes C. Rubeo (Avatar) about her work on John Carter. Rubeo discussed the new film, creating its exotic wardrobe, and she even gave Anica a tour of some of the fantastic costumes that she created for the upcoming film. 

There's a new minute-and-a-half international featurette for John Carter that combines new footage, stuff we've already seen, and several creative figures from the film talking it up.  Amidst the requisite claims that the movie will be "so huge" but is also "a character-driven story," co-writer and director Andrew Stanton notes that the source material, A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, has inspired countless other properties, "from books to comic books to movies."  Shoring up the point, Willem Dafoe points out that without Burroughs' novels, there'd be no Star Wars or Avatar.

This week we've already seen quite a bit from John Carter.  On Sunday, there was the Super Bowl spot and an extended, minute-long version of that commercial, then Monday brought seven new images from the science fiction epic that Disney is very much hoping will kick off a franchise adapting the almost-century old Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Now, we've got a whole new extended TV spot, and this one feels like, with a month until release, the marketing effort for John Carter may have found just the right note to play.

Synopsis:  This holiday season, acclaimed filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) directs an amazing and true story about a single dad who decides his family needs a fresh start, so he and his two children move to the most unlikely of places: a zoo. With the help of an eclectic staff, and with many misadventures along the way, the family works to return the dilapidated zoo to its former wonder and glory.

Cast:  Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning, Patrick Fugit, Thomas Haden Church, Angus Macfadyen

Director: Cameron Crowe

Genre:  Family, Drama

Release Date: December 23, 2011

After months of keeping surprisingly quiet, Disney has opened up the nascent marketing campaign for John Carter, the studio's hugely-budgeted science fiction epic that is being positioned as the start to a franchise adapting the massively influential Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Last week, we saw a full theatrical trailer and a series of banner posters.  Now that Disney is beginning to sell the film in earnest, its co-writer and director Andrew Stanton is talking a bit about two potentially sore subjects.  The first is the film's title, which is being widely criticized as bland enough that it will fail to intrigue general audiences.  The second is the production's extensive reshoot period, which Stanton explains as part of an intuitive and healthy process.