Box office ticket sales in North America hit a record high for the Christmas weekend, a ticket sales tracking company said on Sunday, with Avatar topping the pack of hit films.
Overall weekend takings reached $275 million, the highest in the film industry's history, industry tracker Exhibitor Relations reported.
The effects-laden, 3-D epic Avatar, director James Cameron's first film since the 1997 Oscar-winner Titanic, raked in $75 million from Friday to Sunday, according to its preliminary estimates.
The film, which cost between $300 and 500 million to produce, is also the most expensive movie ever made.
Avatar was followed by a slew of new releases, including Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey and Jude Law, which earned $65.4 million since its opening on Christmas Day. The two movies accounted for 53 per cent of the weekend box office.
In third place was the comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel — a movie the Washington Post said was a minor Christmas miracle because it “isn't entirely awful.”