Avatar: Fire and Cash

Third sci-fi film grosses over $1bn just weeks after release

- BY MARYAM QAISER

It may have been panned by critics but James Cameron's sci-fi adventure Avatar: Fire and Ash has proved such a hit with fans it has become the director's fourth film to gross more than $1billion at the box office.

Of the hundreds of thousands of movies ever made, only 60 have become billion-dollar blockbusters.

All three of Cameron's Avatar films have been nine-figure global hits.

After 1997's Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, which grossed $2.3bn worldwide, the original 2009 Avatar movie with its groundbreaking use of visual effects and 3D made $2.9bn.