Hope (The Leopard Movie)

Hope is a 2018 American live-action feature film destined to be released by 20th Century Fox in February 2, 2018.

Plot
Taking place in the vast plains of the Serengeti, two leopards; one male (named Chui) and one female (named Doa), meet and mate. Months later, the leopard couple has given birth to two leopard cubs, who, along with their father, would one day get killed after the rocky outcrop where they live is disturbed by lions, who, as the leopard pair knows, see leopards as competition for food on the Serengeti and will kill a leopard every chance they get.

Two leopard cubs are playing when the second cub comes upon a young honey badger. The cub chases the badger into its burrow and the mother badger appears and chases the cub up a tree. The first leopard cub appears and chases the mother badger back into her burrow. Eventually, lions come across them in their rocky outcrop home while Doa is out hunting. The cubs hide inside the rocky lair for safety. But the lion boss catches the cubs’ scent and finds them. Chui appears, but the lionesses have caught up with them and he is suffocated dead by a lioness, named Sarabi, when attacking the male lion (her mate, Mufasa), who harms his two cubs next, as protection.

When Doa returns home, she finds her family is dead, mate and cubs. The leopardess follows the scent of lions and follows and finds the pride. She remembers lions as a past memory when they chased her mother up a tree and the lions gave up. So Doa decides to move away to a lion-free territory.

After two weeks, Doa has been walking in circles across the Serengeti and dreaming about her past family. She has finally found a territory where she can be safe from lions. She feels ready to mate again, and calls out, only to attract a female black-chested snake eagle (named Tai) who promises to help her find a mate.

Meanwhile, Sarabi has left her pride to give birth to a cub (later named Simba). After nursing her baby, she leaves him to find food, only to be attacked by two rogue male lions. Simba, still born with his eyes shut, is found all alone by Tai. The eagle flies back to Doa and alerts the leopard to adopt the lion cub. When she reaches him, she finds him surrounded by seven spotted hyenas. Despite being outnumbered, Doa fights off the hyenas with her sharp claws and teeth until the pack runs off, defeated.

Doa turns to Simba, but is unsure about what to do about the lion cub. Tai appears and tells her about the cub’s mother’s death and that Doa must adopt Simba and raise him as her own. To save her skin from being killed by lions, Doa agrees, and moves into a tree with her adopted son.

Three months later, Simba has grown into a rambunctious lion cub and enjoys playing with his adoptive mother. Doa has kept the cub’s past a secret from him in order to avoid the shame. She manages to train Simba how to hone his hunting skills, having him practice on a scrub hare. Six months later, the cub, still believing he is a leopard, finds a female lion cub named Nala and starts to bond with her. When Doa calls Simba home, the cub makes Nala promise to come again some other time.

When Simba is fully grown, he still has a close bond with his leopard mother and has finally been trained to hunt, hence him hunting a zebra for his mother. Days later, Simba finds a female leopard and tries to mate with her, but she avoids him. Confused, Simba starts to return to his mother, only to find Nala, who has also grown up. Simba realizes that Nala is a lioness and starts to avoid her. Simba finally finds his mother and Nala, who had secretly followed, starts laughing at the idea that a lion has been mothered by a leopard.

Nala returns to her pride and tells them that she had met a lion who had been raised by a leopard. One of the pride males and Nala’s uncle, Makunga, tells the pride that it’s against the laws of nature for a lion to have a leopard for a mother. Meanwhile, when Doa and Simba go to a waterhole for a drink, Simba finds that he and his adoptive mother are totally different (by looking at their reflections in the water). When Simba asks why, Doa sadly confesses that the lion’s real mother had been killed by rogue male lions and he himself had been ambushed by hyenas, and then Doa had saved the cub’s life and adopted him with the help of Tai the snake eagle and raised him and lied to avoid being killed by lions herself. Simba accepts his adoptive mother’s honesty and she tells him that even though he doesn’t look like her, they’re still the same on the inside, if only their species could see that.

Days later, Simba is forced to return to the world of lions. When he finds Nala’s pride, he is cut off by Makunga and his brother Zuba. The two lions attack Simba, but he manages to drive them away and becomes Nala’s mate. Soon, the two lions have a lion cub they name Kiara. Simba secretly takes Kiara for a walk and introduces her to Doa, who is impressed with her “grandchild”. After Simba returns to the pride, he asks them to make peace with his adoptive leopard mother. The pride accepts, and soon the Serengeti is a place of peace and harmony for both lions and leopards. Just before the credits, some comments to save leopards (as a species) and lions (as a species) are shown.

Trivia

 * The leopards in this movie should have stock sounds of leopards, cougars, and jaguars, and the lions should have stock sounds of lions, tigers, and leopards.