Avatar Breaks Recordes and Passes Batman The Dark Knight

For the sixth week straight, the box office is all about James Cameron’s Avatar, as it added another $36 million this weekend to set a new record for a movie’s sixth weekend gross. More importantly, it has now grossed $552.8 million domestically, making it the second-highest grossing movie domestically, passing The Dark Knight’s $533.3 million over the weekend and putting it in sight to cross Titanic’s long-standing record of $600.8 million sometime next month. Internationally, Avatar earned $107 million this weekend to push its overseas total to a massive $1.28 billion, surpassing Titanic’s previous international record of $1.24 billion. Worldwide, the film has collected $1.836 billion and is about to surpass Titanic’s global record of $1.843 billion.

The Screen Gems action-thriller Legion, starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid and Tyrese Gibson, opened solidly in second place with $18.2 million in 2,476 theaters, averaging over $7,000 per site.

Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Book of Eli (Warner Bros.) dropped to third place $17 million in its second weekend, down 48% from the holiday weekend with a gross of $62 million.

Opening at #4, 20th Century Fox’s new family comedy Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne Johnson, grossed roughly $14.5 million in its first weekend in 3,344 theaters.

In fifth place, Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones (Paramount) dropped 48% from its first wide release weekend, adding another $8.8 million to its total gross of $31.7 million.

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (Warner Bros.) dropped one notch to sixth with another $7.1 million and $191.6 million after five weeks in theaters, putting it well ahead of its $90 million production budget.

Despite the star power of Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, the first release from CBS films, the medical drama Extraordinary Measures opened with a disappointing $7 million in 2,549 theaters, averaging less than $3,000 per site.

Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel dropped to eighth place with $6.5 million and a grand total of $204 million in five weeks. That puts it roughly $13 million away from the total North American gross for its predecessor. (Internationally, the “squeakquel” has already surpassed that of the original comedy.)

Nancy Meyers’ romantic comedy It’s Complicated (Universal), starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, took ninth place with $6.2 million as it edged closer to $100 million, while Jackie Chan’s The Spy Next Door (Lionsgate) took a 51% dive to take tenth place with $4.7 million and $18.7 million total.