Cameron Crowe's We Bought A Zoo gets a trailer

The first official trailer for Cameron Crowe's We Bought A Zoo has arrived online.

The film, which is based on the memoirs of Benjamin Mee (here transplanted to the US), stars Matt Damon as a grieving husband struggling to decide how best to raise his children following his wife's death.

Despite the fact that premise sounds rather maudlin, the trailer suggests a tone that's more hopeful than depressing.

The countryside looks beautifully shot, there's plenty of exotic animals to gawp at, and the kids don't seem too annoying. Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church and Elle Fanning are among Damon's co-stars.

Since 2005's Elizabethtown , Crowe has directed two music documentaries: The Union and Pearl Jam Twenty .

Check out the We Bought A Zoo trailer here:

We Bought A Zoo opens on 23 December 2011.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.