LOS ANGELES - Matt Damon is in early talks to team up with Cameron Crowe for "We Bought a Zoo," the true story of a man who used his life savings to buy a dilapidated zoo, replete with 200 exotic animals facing destruction, in the English countryside.

Damon would play Benjamin Mee who, along with his children, balanced caring for his terminally ill wife, with dealing with escaped tigers, raising endangered animals, working with an eclectic skeleton crew and readying the zoo for a reopening.

The project is based on Mee's memoir of the same name.

"Zoo" would mark a departure for Damon, who tends to make more dramatic or action-oriented thrillers. He next stars in the supernatural thriller "The Adjustment Bureau."

"Zoo" with its blend of animals and heartstrings, may occupy similar terrain as Fox's 2008 "Marley & Me." And with the input of Crowe, making his first film since 2005's "Elizabethtown," the movie could end up juggling light moments with drama like "Jerry Maguire."