Every now and then there's a YouTube clip that can get away with using a Whitney Houston song and still charm every single person who sees it, regardless of how cynical and hateful they may be. For months now that clip has been of Christian the lion, the animal raised as a cub by two men in London and eventually sent to live in the wild when he got too big. The men went to visit Christian a year later, and even though they were told the lion wouldn't remember them... well, why don't you just watch the clip for yourself . I'll wait.



Now the story of Christian the hugging lion is going to be a movie, with Sony acquiring "life rights" to the lion's owners, John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Sony also has the rights to the 1972 book that Rendall and Bourke wrote, A Lion Called Christian.