'Avatar' unstoppable at North American box office

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Science-fiction blockbuster "Avatar" ruled the North American box office for the fifth consecutive week to maintain its charge towards an all-time record, estimated figures showed Sunday.

Oscar-winning director James Cameron's groundbreaking 3-D spectacular, which is already the second-highest grossing film in history, added to its haul with another 41.3 million dollars, box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said.

The movie has raked in more than 1.3 billion dollars worldwide since its release and is on course to overtake Cameron's 1997 Academy Awards best picture winner "Titanic," which remains the highest-grossing film of all time.

The enduring appeal of "Avatar" proved too much for Denzel Washington vehicle "Book of Eli", an action movie set in a post-apocalyptic world which debuted with a respectable 31.6 million dollars.

In third place was "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson's latest film, "The Lovely Bones", an adaptation of Alice Sebold's acclaimed 2002 novel about a murdered schoolgirl who helps her family catch the man who killed her from the afterlife. The film, starring Irish actress Saoirse Ronan and Susan Sarandon, picked up 17 million dollars in its first weekend on wide release.

In fourth was family film "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," which added another 11.5 million dollars to its four-week haul of 192.6 million.

Fifth place was occupied by "Sherlock Holmes" with 9.8 million dollars.

Director Guy Ritchie's high-octane take on the adventures of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary London detective, played by Robert Downey Jr, has taken 180 million dollars in four weeks.

Hong Kong film legend Jackie Chan weighed in at sixth place with his slapstick comedy "The Spy Next Door", which took 9.7 million dollars.

Love triangle comedy "It's Complicated," starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, dropped to seventh, taking 7.7 million dollars.

Falling two spots to eighth was "Leap Year," a romantic comedy starring Amy Adams and Adam Scott, which took 5.9 million.

Ninth belonged to "The Blind Side," about a white couple who give an illiterate black teen a home and a new lease on life, earning 5.6 million dollars.

"Up in the Air," starring George Clooney in the acclaimed story of a corporate downsizer who questions his role in life, rounded out the top 10 with with 5.5 million dollars.