"Avatar" #2 Movie & Will Soon Sink "Titanic"

James Cameron's "Avatar" is defying expectations as it makes it way to becoming the #1 movie of all-time sinking Cameron's classic "Titanic" - a feat that only weeks ago seemed impossible.

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In this sixth week at the box office, "Avatar" held on to the #1 spot with an outstanding $36million - most films would be happy to make that in their ad blitz opening weekend let alone in the sixth run.

That brings "Avatar's" total to $552.8 million passing "The Dark Knight" ($533million) to become the second highest grossing move of all time in domestic receipts.

In the international arena (despite the thuggish and censoring behavior of the Chinese government), "Avatar" also continues to gross enormous intakes. This weekend, it passed "Titanic's" record for international ticket sales with $1.29 billion to the latter's $1.24 billion.

In terms of domestic and international sales combined, "Avatar" is only $6million short of overtaking "Titanic's" position as the #1 one movie in international/domestic sales. It will pass that by Monday, of course. While that title is incredibly impressive and more important especially at a time when Hollywood is more dependent on international rather than domestic sales (70% of "Avatar" tickets sold are overseas), the psychologically satisfying record and true benchmark of "Avatar's" success - the one record everyone is looking at - is whether it will surpass "Titanic" to become the #1 movie in the North American market.

With $552million in its sixth week and the film still holding on strong - its week-by-week drop off rate in incredibly low by industry standard - "Avatar" will no doubt be "Titanic's" other iceberg (ok, no more Titanic puns!) and soon claim the title. By the end of next week.

A final note, "Avatar's" domestic and international success needs a few caveats. First, ticket prices in general - and especially the 3D and Imax tickets - are more expensive today than in the late 1990s and greatly boost "Avatar's" sales and the film has the advantage of driving much, if not most, of audience to buy even more expensive 3D/Imax tickets. In tickets sold, "Avatar" claims more than 60million next to "Titanic's" 120million in the United States. It is unlike that Cameron will top his previous ticket sales - and he does not need to - which saw people attending multiple screenings of "Titanic". Second, there is more of an international audience now. In the last +10 years since Titanic, hundreds of millions of people around the world have joined the global middle class and can now afford such luxuries as movie tickets. China is a big market, something nobody thought of when "Titanic" was playing. Tens of millions of Chinese, for example, can now afford to watch Cameron something they could not do during "Titanic". And, thirdly and most importantly, inflation. Accounting for inflation, "Titanic's" domestic/international sales would be $2.4billion - "Avatar" is unlikely to surpass that.

Nonetheless, "Avatar" at #1 (or even #2) is an incredible feat for the same director. With this record, no studio would dare deny any Cameron screenplay - even the most ludicrous - hundreds of millions in funding. Cameron has a black cheque in Hollywood to now do whatever he wants.

An enviable position for even the most accomplished filmmaker.