Zookeeper (film)

Zookeeper is a 2011 American fantasy comedy film directed by Frank Coraci, with a screenplay by Nick Bakay, Rock Reuben, Kevin James, Jay Scherick, and David Ronn, from a story by Scherick and Ronn, and produced by Todd Garner, James, Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, and Walt Becker. The film stars James, Rosario Dawson, and Leslie Bibb, with the voice roles of Cher, Nick Nolte, Sandler, Sylvester Stallone, Judd Apatow, Jim Breuer, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Richie Minervini, Maya Rudolph, Bas Rutten, and Don Rickles in his final film role. It tells the story about an unlucky zookeeper and the talking animals at his zoo who break their silence to help him find love.

Filming began in Boston on August 17, 2009. It was the first Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM) film to be co-produced with Happy Madison, as well as MGM's first production to be released after it had filed for bankruptcy the year prior, though the film, like a majority of the Happy Madison output, was distributed by Columbia Pictures. Zookeeper was released in the United States on July 8, 2011. It received mostly negative reviews from critics and earned $169.8 million on an $80 million budget.