Happy Madison’s romantic comedy, The Zookeeper, had already been doing pretty well in the casting stakes with Kevin James and Rosario Dawson on board – but today, things stepped up a notch or ten with the news that Adam Sandler, Sylvester Stallone, Jon Favreau, Cher and Judd Apatow will lend their voices to the live-action comedy.
If that’s baffled you slightly, allow us to explain: the story revolves around James, a lowly zookeeper trying to win back the heart of his true love (Dawson)… thanks to the dating advice of the animals he looks after. No, really.
Which is where our high-profile quintet (along with Faizon Love, Jim Breuer and Bas Rutten) come in, as the voices of said animals. Sandler is a capuchin monkey, Favs is a bear, Stallone a – what else? – lion, Apatow an elephant and Cher, who’s having quite the comeback day, a giraffe.
It all sounds horribly close to the Eddie Murphy **Doctor Doolittle **movies for us, but there’s no denying the sheer calibre of this voice cast. Also, the script for the movie, by Jay Scherick and David Ronn, was hot property last year when MGM outbid several other studios to pay at least $2 million for it, so it must have something going for it.
Since then, three more writers have been added to the mix, including James himself, which again is usually not a good sign. But fingers crossed that The Zookeeper turns out ok.
Shooting will start in October, with Frank Coraci calling the shots.