Matt Damon circling the 'Zoo'

6:36 AM PDT 10/14/2010 by Borys Kit, AP

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Actor in talks for lead role in Cameron Crowe feature

Matt Damon may team up with Cameron Crowe for "We Bought a Zoo," Fox's adaptation of a memoir by Benjamin Mee.

The actor is in early talks to portray Mee who used his life savings to buy a dilapidated zoo, replete with 200 exotic animals facing destruction, in the English countryside.

Mee, along with his children, had to balance caring for his wife, who was dying of brain cancer, with dealing with escaped tigers, raising endangered animals, working with an eclectic skeleton crew and readying the zoo for a reopening.

Julie Yorn is producing.

"Zoo" would mark a departure for Damon, who tends to make more dramatic or action -oriented thriller. "Zoo" with its blend of animals and heartstrings, may occupy similar terrain to Fox's 2008 "Marley & Me." And with the input of Crowe, making his first movie since 2005's "Elizabethtown," the movie could end up juggling light moments with drama like the helmer's "Jerry Maguire."

Crowe rewrote the script, which was originally written by Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada").

Damon, who next stars in supernatural thriller "The Adjustment Bureau," is repped by WME.