US director James Cameron's newest film Avatar filled the cinema cash registers this weekend with a 73- million-dollar take that put it way in the lead at the box office, dpa reported.
The futuristic science fiction epic, shown with new 3D technology that was 12 years in the making, thus took in about a quarter of its production costs estimated at 250 to 300 million dollars.
Cameron's previous phenomenal success was Titanic. A record December snowstorm that has shut down roads and commercial firms across most of the East Coast could have eaten into the potential take, Hollywood experts said.
Disney's animated film The Princess and the Frog dropped to second place from first place last week, with 12.2 million dollars, followed by: The Blind Side (10 million dollars); Did You Hear About the Morgans? (7 million dollars); The Twilight Saga: New Moon, 4.3 million dollars); the Nelson Mandela biopic, Invictus, (4.2 million dollars); A Christmas Carol (2009) (3.4 million dollars); Up in the Air with George Clooney (3.1 million dollars); Brothers (2.6 million dollars); and Old Dogs (2.3 million dollars).
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