Ambimama - India

Avatar crosses $1 billion: I had read this News on 4th Jan itself on the Net. But it appeared in today’s Times of India. The news appeared in the First Post under the heading “A new era of 3D movies could help reignite the faltering film industry” BY EDWARD HELMORE

Here is the concise News:
James Cameron, the Hollywood movie director, appears to have found his own money machine.
Over the weekend, Cameron’s science-fiction epic Avatar shot past the $1 billion box office marker in worldwide sales, only the fifth movie ever to do so.

Avatar is Cameron’s second film to cross the $1 billion barrier (the first being Titanic which went on to take $1.8 billion) and a major triumph for Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox, the studio that bankrolled the virtually movie star-less project.

About 75 per cent of the Avatar box office take has come from cinemas showing it in digital 3D presentation - at a premium over traditional 2D showings - and has proved to Hollywood that customers are prepared to pay more for the new technological experience.

Cameron is the only filmmaker to have made two films to cross the billion marker (the three other $1bn breakers are The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Dark Knight). If Avatar takes another $140 million - which it almost certainly will - it will surpass Lord of the Rings to become the most successful film of all time.

Cameron took more than 10 years to complete the film. Film critics say Avatar has returned a sense of social experience to film-going.

The great movie makers are rushing to work in the 3D medium, including Steven Spielberg, who is making Tintin, and Tim Burton, who is completing Alice in Wonderland.
More news to come!