AVATAR has made $1 billion

SHOOT: Cameron is the only filmmaker to have made two movies earning more than $1 billion.

"Here's what's happening: I think everybody has to see `Avatar' once. Even people who don't normally go to the movies, they've heard about it and are saying, `I have to see it.' Then there's those people seeing it multiple times."

clipped from movies.yahoo.com LOS ANGELES - James Cameron's science-fiction epic "Avatar" had another stellar weekend with $68.3 million domestically, shooting past $1 billion worldwide, only the fifth movie ever to hit that mark. No. 1 for the third-straight weekend, 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" raised its domestic total to $352.1 million after just 17 days. The film added $133 million overseas to lift its international haul to $670 million, for a worldwide gross of $1.02 billion. "Avatar" opened two weekends earlier with $77 million, a strong start but far below dozens of other blockbusters that debuted as high as $158 million. But business for other blockbusters usually tumbles in following weekends, while "Avatar" revenues barely dropped over the busy Christmas and New Year's weekends. "It's like a runaway freight train. It just keeps doing business," said Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston.