Even though New York and New Jersey were still partially shut down, and a lot of people are still in dire straits, money was spent on entertainment this weekend. Disney’s animated “Wreck it Ralph” took in $49 million and set some records for the fabled company. This probably had a lot to do with needing some place to take kids, but it’s still good. The record is for a weekend debut by a Disney Animated Studios release. “W-I-R” topped the old record set by “Tangled” in 2010. None of these is as good as “The Lion King” or “Aladdin” or even the glorious “Wall E” but “Ralph” does show Disney has much life left in it…
The NBC telethon “Coming Together” for Hurricane Sandy made $23 on Friday night, with appearances by Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Steven Tyler, Jon Bon Jovi, Mary J. Blige, Christina Aguilera, among others. Matt Lauer gets much needed points for organizing it so swiftly. Of course, $23 million is drop in the bucket, but it brings awareness of Sandy victims to people not in the immediate area. There may have to be a bigger show in December to raise more money: Staten Island, the Rockaways, the Jersey Shore and other areas will require huge amounts more to recover properly.
I don’t want to nitpick and take away from the event but now that it’s over: “Coming Together” wasn’t exactly multi-cultural. Maybe next time we could see some New York R&B. There’s plenty of local soul, from Valerie Simpson to Jay Z and Beyonce to Dionne Warwick, Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love, to Allen Toussaint, who comes from New Orleans but came here after Hurricane Katrina.
