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 $1 billion at the box office.

Of the hundreds of thousands of movies ever made, only 60 have become $1 billion 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 $2.3billion worldwide, the original 2009 Avatar movie - with its groundbreaking use of visual effects and 3D - made $2.9billion.