Animation, Friday Box Office | featured news

Moviegoing surges in the Northeast as people look for a distraction from Superstorm Sandy; most movie theaters now reopened. Disney Animation Studios' Wreck-It Ralph rushed to the top of the box office chart on Friday with an opening day gross of $13.4 million.

It's 1994 all over again, with a re-release of "The Lion King" opening at the top of the box office. A 3-D version of the wildly popular Disney animated musical earned a surprising $29.3 million in its first weekend in theaters, according to Sunday estimates. The original film made more than $40 million when it opened nationwide 17 years ago.

Defying all projections, Disney’s re-release of The Lion King roared its way to a first-day gross of $8.8 million at the domestic box office and is now on course to gross as much as $25 million for the weekend. Lion King easily claimed the top spot over three new films — Ryan Gosling starrer Drive, Sarah Jessica Parker comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It and Rod Lurie’s Straw Dogs remake.

On Friday, Pixar demonstrated its reliability again with the roll-out of Cars 2. The manufacturer's latest model posted an estimated $25.7 million out of the gate, but many moviegoers were hot for Bad Teacher as well. Riding on approximately 7,700 screens at 4,115 locations, Cars 2 delivered the second highest-grossing opening day yet for a Pixar movie, behind Toy Story 3's $41.1 million, and the talking car sequel is poised for a weekend gross in the Pixar-typical $70 million range.
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Paramount and Nickelodeon Movies' quirky toon Rango -- voiced by Johnny Depp -- topped the Friday box office with an estimated $9.8 million from 3,917 theaters, a somewhat softer-than-expected start for the critically acclaimed film.

Tangled rid itself of any knots as it climbed to the top of the box office on Friday, grossing $5.1 million, according to early estimates. That’s a 74 percent drop from last Friday, which, mind you, was an enormous day for moviegoing. The PG animated musical should receive a decent bump on Saturday, as most family films do, and finish the weekend with about $21 million.

Sony toon earns $5.6 million, 'Surrogates' collects $5 million -- Friday moviegoers enjoyed a second helping of Sony’s 3-D toon "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," spending an estimated $5.6 million at 3,119 locales.