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Cameron Crowe’s ‘We Bought a Zoo’ Special Screenings on Thanksgiving Weekend

When a movie tests well studios will be more than happy to share that experience with a sneak peak, and that is just what Fox is doing with We Bought a Zoo (click here to check out the trailer). But this is no ordinary sneak peek, the special screening will be held a full month before its release.

Fox is trying to work out the number of theaters that will screen the preview of We Bought a Zoo, and according to Slashfilm (via Deadline), that number holds at just over 800 theaters. The studio is trying to get more.

In a statement, Oren Aviv and Tony Sella, the studio’s marketing mavens, said: “Once in a while, we’re lucky enough to have a picture to which audiences of all kinds and all ages respond so strongly, that it demands a big and unexpected event. We Bought A Zoo is that kind of picture – and Thanksgiving is a great time to share it via this special very early preview.”

So they want to have word of mouth to fuel the interest of the film. It’s a sound idea, especially when the holiday box office life expectancy is a short one. According to the studio test screenings of the film in both major cities and the heartland have produced “exceptional responses across wide-ranging demographics so the Studio is using one family holiday to prime the release for the next holiday”.

Based on Benjamin Mee’s memoir of the same name Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo stars Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit, Maggie Elizabeth Jones and John Michael Higgins.