Avatar climbs back to top at box office

LONDON – After briefly losing ground to a bunch of animated chipmunks, director James Cameron’s 3D blockbuster “Avatar” regained pole position at the UK box office over the weekend.

The story of a man sent to infiltrate an alien race has already become the fourth-biggest movie of all time worldwide, according to its distributor 20th Century Fox, having passed the $1 billion mark after three weekends.

But in Britain it failed to break the 10 million-pound mark on its debut and was overtaken after just one week by the latest Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.

During its third weekend, however, Avatar grossed 5.9 million pounds ($9.5 million), putting it back on top and bringing its UK total to 32.8 million pounds, Screen International said on Tuesdsay.

Guy Ritchie’s remake of “Sherlock Holmes” with Robert Downey Jr. as the great detective and Jude Law as Dr Watson, was another climber, up one spot to second.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” was down at three, just above Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker who came in at four with the story of a New York couple witnessing a murder in “Did You Hear about the Morgans?”

“Nine,” with Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Penelope Cruz, having jumped seven places last week, climbed another spot to fifth.

“St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold,” slipped a place to sixth while Bollywood movie “3 Idiots” was down at seven from four.

“Nowhere Boy,” the story of John Lennon’s early life, with Aaron Johnson as the young Beatle, dropped a place to eighth.

Ninth, unchanged, was “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” while “Planet 51,” the story of an alien race living the life of 1950s America, was back up at 10 having slipped to 14th last week.