SUNDAY 6:45 AM, 6TH UPDATE (Top Ten grosses below):  Total moviegoing this weekend is $125M, which is a healthy +15% from last year. The good news is that as Hurricane Sandy recovery continued, Saturday became a big attendance day.

Going into this weekend, less than 100 flick theaters on the East Coast remained off the grid on Friday.

But that number went down as the power came on. The even better news was that NYC biz in particular was very strong – despite transportation problems but because of cabin fever. ”Clearly, folks need and have an escape valve from the misery of Sandy – namely the movies,” one top distribution exec tells me.Overall weekend domestic box office was led by Disney’s well-reviewed 3D blockbuster Wreck-It Ralph (playing in  3,752 theaters) whose gross went up a huge +58% from Friday to Saturday for an expected $50.0M through Sunday.

It’s the biggest non-holiday opening for a Disney Animation Studios title. Clearly here’s a brand new original franchise for the Mouse House.

This action toon went into Friday accounting for 20% of all online ticket sales at Fandango and MovieTickets.

Yet there was some flopsweat by Disney not just because of the storm variable but because family tracking has been unreliable of late.

(Remember Frankenweenie, anyone?) “I think they’re going to get enough teens to supplement the family audience and pop a real number,” a rival ...... See Complete Article @ Deadline Hollywood