The movie ‘My Name is Khan’ collected a $US23 million ($AU26 million) revenue in the subcontinent, second to the $26 million ($AU30 million) income by Cameron’s film.

‘My Name is Khan’ focuses on the tale of a Muslim who lives in San Francisco during the 11 September terrorist attacks. The production by Fox-Star Studios India Pvt. and two companies in India is considered as this year’s highest-earning local film in India.

News Corp.’s Walt Disney Co. and Twentieth Century Fox, the maker of Avatar, and Warner Bros. of Time Warner Inc. are currently utilising local talent in producing Indian-language movies as they attempt to crack the movie market which sold over 3.2 billion movie tickets in 2009, more than twice the combined number of tickets sold in Canada and in the US.

The sales of movie tickets are expected to increase to about ₨130 billion ($US3 billion) by 2013 from the ₨87.8 billion in 2009, said the PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

“Hollywood studios realize that if they want to increase their revenue, they are going to struggle to do that in America”, Mike Ellis, the Asia Pacific president for Motion Picture Association, said. “Nearly every single studio is already in India. They are definitely here for the long haul”, he concluded.

Cameron says that a second film will head to the oceans of the alien world on Pandora, with a third film likely to head out into space. “Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora,” he told the LA Times. “And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest. I’m not saying we won’t see what we’ve been already seen; we’ll see more of that as well.

We created a broad canvas for the environment of the film. That’s not just on Pandora, but throughout the Alpha Centauri AB system – and we expand that out across that system and incorporate more into the story – not necessarily in the second film, but more toward the third film.” Cameron goes on to say that the biggest challenge in making the “Avatar” sequel will be cutting down costs without compromising quality.

“The challenge will be on the next “Avatar” picture… to do what we did before at half the price and in half the time,” he acknowledges. “Again, that’s an impossible goal, we won’t accomplish that, but if we can reduce by 25 percent in both categories, we’ll have really accomplished something.”

In an interview with comingsoon.net, Landau says, “Look, I think one of the things that we have been successful at is that the most pressure we feel is our own pressure. I think  that’s true as make a movie, whether it be “Titanic” or “Avatar”. Our pressure about an “Avatar” sequel is self imposed. We’ve always said that if the public wanted a sequel, that we would do a sequel. That having been said, in my opinion, Jim (Cameron) has done two sequels in his career (“Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”) and both times he has at least equaled if not surpassed the original movie. We’re only going to do it when we have a piece of material, a script, that we believe will be at least as entertaining and unique as the first movie was.”

He admits, however, that if they do want to do a sequel, it will be a lot easier to make than the original. “The hard part is out of the way,” he concedes. “We figured out how to do it, and our goal in the next one is to do it more cost effectively and time effectively, and we have kept on a team of our technical staff, who is working right now on Gen 2 of what we did, but with all the experience that we’ve had. We kept them on, and they’re working for us right now.”

The film will be released on both standard DVD and on Blu-ray on the twenty second of next month – but only in 2D, with a 3D DVD version expected at some point later in the year, at which point the studio will no doubt be hoping everyone will rush out and buy it all over again. The 3D science fiction cash cow – which is still raking in millions at the box office three months after its cinema release, and has become the highest grossing film of all time thanks to expensive 3D tickets and the price of inflation – will be released on the twenty second in the US and Canada, with the rest of the world getting it more or less around the same time (the twenty sixth of April in the United Kingdom, the twenty ninth in Australia, with several other minor variations).

The twenty second of April coincides with the fortieth anniversary of “Earth Day”, a nifty – or cynical, depending on your point of view – piece of serendipity given the trendy eco-friendly “message” of the blockbuster movie. If all that money wasn’t enough, rumours are still persisting that the studio will rerelease the film in cinemas later this year, with additional footage to draw fans back in yet again and earn Fox even more profits. The film is now being expected to have ultimately grossed three billion dollars worldwide.

DiCaprio was really there to talk about his new movie, the yet to be released thriller “Shutter Island”, directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, as well as Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”. “I don’t know what I’m allowed to say about “Inception”,” DiCaprio admits. “I don’t even know what I’m allowed to say about “Shutter Island”, to be honest. Both Chris and Martin are great directors. The material and its complexity are what I’m attracted to. I’m not happy if I don’t have a lot to do. I’ve been lucky to work with people who want to tell stories that hit on different cylinders simultaneously. “Shutter Island” is definitely that… “Inception” is the same. It is Chris delving into dream psychoanalysis, making a high octane, surreal film that came from his mind. He wrote the entire thing, and it all made sense to him… We had to do a lot of detective work to figure out what the movie was about.”

“Dear John”, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, and based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, grossed just under thirty four and a half million, also helping to make history by being the highest grossing Superbowl Sunday film in history, beating the previous holder, 2008’s “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds”, which took in just over thirty one million on that same day. “Avatar” was knocked down to second place, still generating a further amount of just under twenty three million to thrust its already historic domestic take up to six hundred and thirty million, the highest grossing movie ever (provided you don’t adjust for inflation, of course, in which case its still “Gone with the Wind”).

Third place – with quite a steep drop – was the new John Travolta thriller “From Paris with Love”, which could only pull in just over eight million, while Mel Gibson’s “Edge of Darkness” fell to fourth place with a take of just seven million. Rounding out the top ten were “Tooth Fairy” (six and a half million), “When in Rome” (five and a half million), “The Book of Eli” (just under five million), “Legion” (just under three a half million) and “Sherlock Holmes” which took in just over two and a half million in its seventh weekend on release (and in the top ten) for a domestic total so far of two hundred and one million.

The most nominated movies were the critically acclaimed Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker” and, perhaps bizarrely, the less critically acclaimed but certainly financially successful 3D blockbuster “Avatar”, each of which picked up nine nominations, including ones for Best Picture and Best Director for ex-spouses Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron respectively, the former becoming only the fourth female director ever to be nominated. “I was surprised at the number of nominations and very grateful,” Mark Boal, writer and producer on “The Hurt Locker”, commented. “When a film gets nominated in nine different categories, you just have to take it as a huge compliment.”

Also nominated were “Inglourious Basterds” and its director, the ever contentious Quentin Tarantino, the Disney/Pixar animation “Up”, the George Clooney drama “Up in the Air”, independent film “Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire”, “An Education”, sports drama “The Blind Side” (which also netted Sandra Bullock her first ever Best Actress nomination) and perhaps the most surprise choice, the unexpectedly successful low budget sci-fi flick “District 9”. Bullock will be up against thirteen-time nominee Meryl Streep and Julia Child (both for “Julia and Julia”), Helen Mirren for “The Last Station”, Gabourey Sidibe for “Precious” and British starlet Carey Mulligan for “An Education”, while Best Actor nods went to Jeff Bridges (“Crazy Heart”), George Clooney (“Up in the Air”), Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Locker”), Colin Firth (“A Single Man”) and Morgan Freeman (for “Invictus”).

The Oscars winners will be announced next month.

The blockbuster is already the highest grossing film ever – with a global total of $2.04 billion, more than surpassing the $1.84 billion achieved by the former number one, another James Cameron epic, “Titanic” – but it is now on track to also sink the “Titanic” in the domestic box office race. In the US alone, “Titanic” is still in the lead with $600.8 million – but with “Avatar” now taking in $594.5 million domestically, the latter is expected to break that record within the coming week.

In other box office news, second place at the weekend went to the Mel Gibson thriller “Edge of Darkness”. The Warner Bros remake of the acclaimed 1980s BBC mini series scored just over seventeen million, with Warner distribution head Dan Fellman saying “The film played really well in all markets.” Third place went to “When in Rome”, the Disney romantic comedy starring Kristen Bell (“Veronica Mars”) and Josh Duhamel, and co-starring Anjelica Huston and Danny DeVito, which took in a healthy tally of just over twelve million. Disney distribution boss Chuck Viane noted that the film “became the choice of couples this weekend, and we did really well.”  Grossing a further ten million to make it into fourth position on the chart was the Fox family comedy “Tooth Fairy”.

What’s perhaps most surprising is that the development is being handled not by some grubby little pornographic movie director, but a relatively well known and respected filmmaker. Gasper Noe, responsible for the controversial “Irreversible” and whose latest picture, “Enter the Void” is currently screening in competition is planning to make a “joyous” sex film – in three dimensions.

“A joyful porn movie – a joyful movie with explicit sex” is how Noe describes his plans for the flick, which will be made with unknown actors. “I never saw a movie that mixed both real emotions and explicit sex,” Noe comments. “In life (sex) is the focus of most people. They are not obsessed with money or social recognition.

They are obsessed with sex. Why do we never see it portrayed for the joy it brings?” The film, “a small family movie” (?) as he calls it, will be made on a low budget and with a small crew in deliberate contrast to “Enter the Void”. “Working in Japan with sixty people in the crew was a lot of fun but once you’ve had a big, big party, you want to have a calm Sunday,” Noe explains. “I would say my erotic movie is going to be my Sunday.”

“Avatar” took in another thirty six million over the weekend, making a domestic total of just under five hundred and fifty three million. In total, factoring in overseas ticket sales, “Avatar” has so far earned $1.842 billion. Given that the total take of “Titanic” was only just above that, with $1.843 billion, “Avatar” is expected to cross the threshold and unseat “Titanic” as the highest grossing film in movie history by the end of today. Not that James Cameron will be too concerned either way, given that he directed the both of them! “Audiences still are going in record numbers around the world to experience this remarkable film,” Fox’s Senior Vice President of Domestic Distribution, Chris Aronson, was quoted as saying.

In other weekend box office news, new science fiction action flick “Legion” took out second place, grossing just over eighteen million, with “The Book of Eli”, starring Denzel Washington and Mila Kunis, clinging to third with a further seventeen million, with family comedy “Tooth Fairy” making it to fourth place with fourteen and a half million. The Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser starring medical drama “Extraordinary Measures” earned seven million, enough to make it to (appropriately enough) seven million. As ever, however, the weekend was once more all about “Avatar”.