Going into the weekend, there was a general feeling that the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy would depress grosses, especially with about 300 theaters along the Eastern Seaboard closed on Friday. But it did anything but–in fact, one could make a case that the box office actually improved this weekend because there was little else for Northeasterners to do–as Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” and Robert Zemeckis’ “Flight” both exploded. The former film pulled in nearly $50m, a very strong opening for an animated non-sequel, and the latter did $25m, which is especially big considering it only opened on 1,884 screens (or about half what “Wreck-It Ralph” did). The only mild disappointment was RZA’s “The Man with the Iron Fists,” which managed just $8.2m, but even that was hardly a disaster because it only cost $15m to make.
Check out the full top 10 chart below:
| No. | Title | Weekend | Per Theater Average | Total |
| 1 | “Wreck-It Ralph” | $49.1M | $13,086 | $49.1M |
| 2 | “Flight” | $25.0M | $13,275 | $25.0M |
| 3 | “Argo” | $10.2M | $3,693 | $75.9M |
| 4 | “The Man with the Iron Fists” | $8.2M | $4,400 | $8.2M |
| 5 | “Taken 2” | $6.0M | $2,274 | $125.7M |
| 6 | “Cloud Atlas” | $5.2M | $2,608 | $18.3M |
| 7 | “Hotel Transylvania” | $4.5M | $1,540 | $137.6M |
| 8 | “Paranormal Activity 4” | $4.3M | $1,430 | $49.6M |
| 9 | “Here Comes the Boom” | $3.6M | $1,556 | $35.6M |
| 10 | “Silent Hill: Revelation” | $3.3M | $1,125 | $13.9M |
Source: Box Office Mojo