It's a shame they aren't adopting Simba's pride. The story was interesting, the music was interesting (but the arrangements were terrible). Rearrange and rerecord those songs and they might have something.
I read they were going to go into Mufasa's backstory, which I think is just a complete mistake. The "Prequel curse" where movies/stories go back to explain characters and their motivations typically don't fare well. The Lion King is Simba's story.