Zookeeper (2011) — Read, Study & Download the Screenplay
An early talking-animal comedy about loneliness, romantic panic, zoo politics, and a sweet zookeeper learning that animal advice is not always field-tested on humans.
The Zookeeper screenplay, presented here in an early draft titled The Zoo Keeper, follows Andrew Breckman, a lonely but deeply devoted zookeeper at the Baltimore Zoo. Andrew knows exactly how to care for elephants, gorillas, giraffes, lions, pandas, tortoises, flamingos, and everything in between, but he cannot figure out how to talk to Kate Quinlin, a beautiful zoologist who arrives with her son Will and a female panda meant to mate with the zoo’s lonely male panda, Sammy. When Andrew considers leaving the zoo for a new life, the animals break their ancient code of silence and decide to help him win Kate before they lose the best keeper they have ever had.
For writers and film students, this early draft is useful because it shows a broad family-comedy premise being built from a very clear emotional engine: Andrew feels invisible to humans but indispensable to animals. Study how the screenplay turns the zoo into a secret social ecosystem, with each animal acting as a comic specialist in courtship, dominance, fear, jealousy, loyalty, and terrible advice. It is a romantic comedy where the wingmen have actual wings, the love guru is a lion with snack-cake issues, and the worst possible dating strategy may involve marking your territory before breakfast.
Ready to get to work? Check out the Study Notes just below. When you're ready, download the Zookeeper screenplay.
Zookeeper Study Notes
What writers and film students can learn from this screenplay
Zookeeper is useful to study because this early draft builds a high-concept comedy from a simple emotional contradiction: Andrew Breckman is beloved by the animals he cares for, but he feels unworthy of love in the human world. The script establishes his loneliness through routine, showing him feeding elephants with secret peanut oil, bringing mini bananas to gorillas, massaging a giraffe, sneaking a Devil Dog to the lion, and talking to the animals as if they are already his closest friends. When Kate Quinlin arrives with her son Will and a potential mate for the zoo’s lonely panda, Andrew sees the life he wants but has no idea how to reach it. That is when the animals reveal they can talk, breaking their ancient code because losing Andrew would be unthinkable. The comedy engine is wonderfully tidy: the animals understand attraction through instinct, scent, dominance, mating rituals, territory, feathers, horns, roars, and poop. Andrew needs emotional courage. The advice he gets is mostly zoological mayhem.
Craft Focus
- High concept with emotional roots: The talking-animal premise works because the animals have a personal stake. They do not talk for spectacle. They talk because Andrew might leave.
- Character through caregiving: Andrew is introduced through small, specific acts of care: treats, massages, cleaning, feeding, remembering preferences, and treating every animal like a friend.
- Comic contrast: The animals give Andrew dating advice based on their own instincts, which creates a reliable joke machine because human romance and animal behavior keep colliding.
- Secret-world structure: The zoo becomes a hidden society with rules, politics, rivalries, codes, hierarchies, and personalities. That secret order gives the screenplay its engine after the first act.
- Rival as status pressure: Trent functions as the polished human alternative to Andrew, creating romantic competition while also sharpening Andrew’s insecurity about class, confidence, and respectability.
Questions for Writers
- How does the opening zoo-routine sequence make Andrew lovable before the talking-animal premise fully arrives?
- Why is Andrew’s loneliness funnier when it is expressed through animal care rather than direct self-pity alone?
- How does the screenplay use the animals’ secret code to create both plot stakes and comic rules?
- Which animals function as comic archetypes, and how do their personalities turn advice scenes into set pieces?
- How does the Kate/Will relationship give Andrew a chance to show kindness beyond romantic pursuit?
- Why does the early draft’s romance structure depend on Andrew learning confidence without becoming someone else entirely?
While reading, pay attention to how this early draft of Zookeeper keeps the animals active as plot mechanics. They do not merely comment from the cages. They lock doors, stage romantic encounters, engineer misunderstandings, sabotage rivals, coach Andrew through disastrous mating strategies, and create physical comedy from instinct-based logic. That is the craft lesson in the habitat: a broad comedy premise gets stronger when every supporting character has a job inside the engine. Even the weirdest joke should pull a lever somewhere.
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Zookeeper (2011)
A group of zoo animals decides to break their code of silence in order to help their lovable zookeeper find love without opting to leave his current job for something more illustrious.
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