Avatar climbs to new heights at the box office
THE 3-D movie phenomenon “Avatar” moved further into rarefied territory at the worldwide box office during the weekend, surpassing the $2bn (£1.25bn) mark days after it broke the record held by “Titanic”.
James Cameron’s sci-fi spectacular has grossed $2.039bn after seven chart-topping weekends of release, distributor 20th Century Fox said yesterday.
The film last Monday smashed the $1.843bn record set in 1998 by the filmmaker’s “Titanic”.
The News Corporation-owned studio declined to forecast where the film would end up, since it expected tomorrow morning’s Oscar nominations to spur a new wave of interest.
It did predict that “Avatar” would break “Titanic’s” North American record of $601m by Wednesday.
The film moved to $594.5m after a strong weekend in the United States and Canada.
The foreign total stands at $1.45bn after a $95m weekend from 120 countries. It remained No. 1 in many of them, including France (sales to date: $134m), China ($126m), Australia ($84m) and Brazil ($43m). News Corp-controlled BSkyB yesterday trialled its 3D football experience in a clutch of pubs.