'Avatar' says farewell at No. 1

Hanging on for what will be its farewell round atop of the foreign circuit, 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" on the weekend made it 11 straight stanzas in the No. 1 spot by grossing $36.1 million from 6,535 screens in 70 markets.

Total foreign take by director James Cameron's 3D blockbuster now stands at $1.844 billion -- thus surpassing the $1.843-billion worldwide boxoffice total rolled up by the director's 1997 former record holder, "Titanic." "Avatar's" worldwide cume is $2.550 billion. To date, its foreign gross is more than two-and-a-half times its domestic cume of $707 million.

The biggest "Avatar" market on the weekend was Japan, where the weekend take was $4 million from 514 locations for a Japan cume of $140 million. Top market overall remains France where the Cameron epic has a total of $169 million thus far.

"Avatar's " foreign reign will be usurped by the opening this week of Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," director Tim Burton's 3D re-imagining of Lewis Carroll's classic, starring Johnny Depp, in 41 foreign markets representing about 60% of the total offshore marketplace.