MUMBAI: James Cameron‘s magnum opus Avatar that has raked in  Rs. 220 million in its opening weekend not only makes it the highest ever weekend collection for any Hollywood film in India beating the opening collections of 2012, Titanic & Spiderman 3, but has also left behind recent top Bollywood grossers of 2009 like All The Best and Kaminey in their weekend collections.

The film has overtaken the openings of recent high-profile Hindi films like Rocket Singh and Paa.

Like in English, the dubbed versions have also been attracting huge crowds. Collections from single-screens were also voluminous with theatres in Bihar, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bhopal, Allahabad, Varanasi, Jallandar, Jammu registering 100 per cent footfalls and people rubbing shoulders to get hold of a spare ticket.. 

The number of 3D screens has seen an increase from 12 screens to over 50 screens registering a growth of over 300 per cent for 3D screens.

Says Fox Star Studios India CEO Vijay Singh, "Avatar has had an amazing opening and the reactions of the audience are fantastic with a large proportion of them wanting to see it again.

"Our theatrical partners are delighted to see queues lining up outside plexes and single-screens for advance bookings of Avatar. The movie is being appreciated across all age groups and languages. Even theatres in the interiors have been doing fantastic business."

Avatar‘s India opening is amongst the top ten weekend performances in the World, beating the likes of traditionally better performing countries like Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand, Sweden, Holland and Hong Kong.

Avatar was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realise his vision did not yet exist.