Right to the very end, the world went absolutely bonkers for “Avatar.”
For 11 straight weeks the James Cameron space opera was No. 1 at the foreign box office, including this past weekend -- which will be its last. Beginning mid-week, Disney’s “Alice In Wonderland” will boot “Avatar” from the vast majority of 3D screens around the world.
And the 20th Century Fox juggernaut took full advantage of its final days, grossing $36.1 million on 6,535 screens, for a foreign total of $1.844 billion. To put that in perspective, “Titanic,” the previous offshore box-office record holder, grossed $1.843 billion – worldwide.
“Avatar’s” worldwide gross of $2.55 billion owes an awful lot to foreign moviegoers, who accounted for more than 70 percent of its receipts.
Martin Scorsese's “Shutter Island” was a distant second in foreign markets this weekend, taking $19 million from 20 territories; it tied with Fox’s "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," which also took $19 million -- but in more than three times as many territories.
Coming in third was “The Wolfman,” the update of the Universal classic horror film, with $10.8 million in 57 territories. Fourth and fifth were “Valentine’s Day” (Warner Bros., $10.4 million); and Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" ($7.7 million).
