James Cameron's science-fiction epic Avatar had another stellar weekend with $68.3 million domestically, shooting past $1 billion worldwide, only the fifth movie ever to hit that mark.
No 1 for the third-straight weekend, 20th Century Fox's Avatar raised its domestic total to $352.1 million after just 17 days. The film added $133 million overseas to lift its international haul to $670 million, for a worldwide gross of $1.02 billion.
Avatar opened two weekends earlier with $77 million, a strong start but far below dozens of other blockbusters that debuted as high as $158 million. But business for other blockbusters usually tumbles in following weekends, while Avatar revenues barely dropped over the busy Christmas and New Year's weekends.
"It's like a runaway freight train. It just keeps doing business," said Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston.
"Here's what's happening: I think everybody has to see Avatar once. Even people who don't normally go to the movies, they've heard about it and are saying, 'I have to see it.' Then there's those people seeing it multiple times."
Avatar was Cameron's first film since 1997's Titanic, the biggest modern blockbuster with $1.8 billion worldwide.
Cameron now is the only filmmaker to direct two movies that have topped $1 billion. Along with Titanic, the others are The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at $1.13 billion, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest at $1.06 billion and The Dark Knight at a fraction over $1 billion, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
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