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ANIMALS

Real Life Simba! Meet Lioness Bahati, The Cute Cub That Inspired Design For Simba Of Disney’s Remake Of 'The Lion King'

Date August 14, 2019 17:25

Author By Michele Collier

Most of our childhood memories would not be complete without mentioning the iconic ‘Lion King’ animation.

Luckily, we get to go down memory lane in style thanks to Disney’s 2019 remake of the animal kingdom inspired movie.

The film featured the creme de la creme of the industry as its cast, such as Beyoncé, James Earl Jones, Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Although the remake followed the same storyline of the original production, it was realness in the live-action that impressed fans. In its first week of release, it earned $275 million and topped the box office charts.

What you may not know is that it was actually a real animal that inspired the design for the main hero of the movie.

Real-life Simba!

If you have watched the remake, you must have been wowed by the cuteness and accuracy of lions depicted by the character. Well, all that was made possible thanks to lioness Bahati!

Bahati is one of the lions of Dallas Zoo that served as a model for Simba in the movie.

As revealed by Daily Mail, the fierce lioness was only a month-old when the animators of Disney began watching her every move.

Officials of the zoo disclosed that for two years they sent videos of Bahati living her normal life.

“When Bahati was just a month old, we provided Disney with video of her movements for their animation team to use for motion and behavior reference when designing Simba in The Lion King. From walking on wobbly new legs to licking milk droplets off of her face, we captured every moment, no matter how small.”

The scene where Simba roared for the first time in the movie was gotten from a clip of Bahati making cooing noises.

Luckily, all those details paid off as the movie got an 88 percent rating from audiences.

Bahati is all grown!

Gorgeous Bahati is all grown now, and she is as beautiful as ever! Although she is way bigger than the little cub that stole Disney’s heart, the cuteness remains unmistakable!

Real Life Simba! Meet Lioness Bahati, The Cute Cub That Inspired Design For Simba Of Disney’s Remake Of 'The Lion King'dallaszoo / Instagram

With the success of the remake of ‘Lion King,’ lioness Bahati sure has a lot to proud of!