ElsaRoc

Release date, probably. Also, Jolie is a much more recognizable star.

It threads the needle between being slavishly dedicated to the original and completely reworking it. It's true to the spirit of the original, but builds on it, rather than trying to subvert it. (I like the subversion in Maleficent, but it stumbles in the execution.)

Yeah. 50m to go after a 15m weekend. It's fun to follow.

Cinderella, too. (Arguably the best of the Disney remakes?)

Yes, it's likely that at least one of them is bigger. (I'm betting on Thor, but... I'm really biased there, so YMMV.) This isn't a critique of the film choices. Clearly Marvel will have some others (sequels to BP and CM, GotG3, another Ant-Man, etc.) And all of those are likely to do strong business. But Marvel wanted their SDCC panel to showcase the smaller films. What smaller means is up in the air. It could mean a lot of stuff in the sub 350 range, or it could mean hovering around 400m is the new normal.

Potentially, all five of the dated MCU films could earn less DOM than Endgame had OW.

Huh, if I'm reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_box_office_records_set_by_Avatar right, then Avatar is still the highest grossing film of all time in 18 territories. Bahrain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, "East and West Africa", Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine. Some of those might be suspect (no notes on what previously held the record, for instance), but there's a few surprisingly large markets like Italy, Russia, and Spain in there.

Huh, they got Portman back. Way to go.

Kids despise it?

It's entirely possible that Snyder didn't intend to start a CU. IIRC, his hiring for MoS was largely because he was likely to hit deadlines. (And budgets?) Since WB wanted it released by a specific time, that was a point in his favor. There's nothing in MoS that indicates a forthcoming CU. It doesn't have a teaser for any other superheroes or future plotlines. And arguably, there's a pretty dang good Superman film in BvS, but WB panicked and thumbtacked Batman into it. And though it's even more removed, you could even see something about Justice League that would have been a Superman only film. Basically, if not for the WB desire to get a cinematic universe going, Snyder probably would have done a trilogy of standalone Superman films that covered the Death and Rebirth story. Some of the details in BvS would have changed, but the broad strokes (Lex working to undermine public trust in Superman, the creation of Doomsday, and Superman's ultimate sacrifice) would have played into a Rise of the Supermen story for the third film. Maybe not the exact versions from the comics, but the germ of it. It probably would have been better for those films. Even though the general dourness of them probably wouldn't have gotten either audiences or critics to wholeheartedly love them, but they likely wouldn't have gotten the critical lambasting that BvS and JL did get. On the other hand, if there hadn't been such a huge stumble in using Batman and Superman together to get a CU running, we probably wouldn't have gotten the more creative and desperate ideas. So no Wonder Woman or Aquaman as they are. No Shazam. No Harley Quinn. We probably would have gotten some form of those characters eventually, but they would have been safer and less risky. (Arguably, we wouldn't have gotten Captain Marvel, either, since Wonder Woman probably pushed Marvel to get on that sooner rather than never.) (If Green Lantern had been a bigger success, say something north of $200m, it's entirely possible that it would have been used to jumpstart the CU rather than MoS.)

I realized earlier that the critical reception for TLK is worse than Man of Steel.

IIRC, Mathew Broderick thought he was playing Kimba at first. The presence or lack of specific elements doesn't mean there wasn't something hinky going on. TLK was a single movie, while Kimba had three manga volumes and 52 TV eps. Plus another 52 that aired in 89-90 in Japan. While it was deffo a different time for anime exposure and knowledge, people in the industry would be more likely to be familiar. And anime was already getting hugely popular. 95 was the same year as the Ghost in the Shell movie.

Many, I feel justified by this line in the AV Club's review:

Or Transformers, which also had a 6 day opening (well, it opened Monday evening, back when the previews were counted as day 0). It pulled 155m for the opening session and 319m total, for a 2.05 multiplier. The last time we had this exact calendar configuration was 2013. Unfortunately both DM2 and Lone Ranger opted for Wednesday openings, so there isn't a good one-to-one comparison. DM2 had a 2.57 multi of the 5-day, while LR had a 1.83.) Even when the 4th falls on the weekend or Monday, it seems fairly normal for releases to open the preceding Wednesday. Twilight Eclipse and TF3 both did that. So, it's probably likely that FFH will do about 1.9-2.1 its 6-day in total.