Latest in Zookeeper

SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Better late than never. I could blame my Horrible Bosses but they’d just claim to be my Zookeeper. (The reason, actually, is far less interesting and much more banal.) That said, both new movies outperformed their tracking and scored ‘B+’ CinemaScores. Though that sucking sound you heard…

What a road this movie has traveled. This is Sony’s big Summer 2011 comedy, but pre-bankruptcy MGM did all the heavy lifting. It paid $2 million for the Jay Scherick/David Ronn script and hired Kevin James at a bargain price before he made Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and then steered the pic through production. It should…

EXCLUSIVE: Mary Parent for 2 1/2 years kept beleaguered MGM together with chicken wire and chewing gum. It was only on the basis of her skill for talent-spotting and dealmaking that the studio was even able to make the movies it did, like the upcoming big comedy Zookeeper with Kevin James that’s now Sony’s major…

Sony Pictures Entertainment has released a teaser for The Zookeeper, the Kevin James-starrer which will be one of the studio’s 2011 summer tent poles. The film was done as a co-production with MGM, but the early heavy lifting was done by former MGM picture chief Mary Parent, who paid $2 million for the Jay Scherick/Dav…