Legato goes on to say The Jungle Book was in some ways a proof of concept, a confirmation that the idea worked, and from there, The Lion King was about iterating on that success, keeping as much the same as possible so that the things that worked before still worked, and the team could focus on improving.
Article source: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2483113/what-disney-learned-from-jungle-book-that-really-helped-on-the-lion-king