'Rings' sinks 'Titanic' record

Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring has done in 13 weeks what took Titanic almost a year - to become the top-grossing movie in New Zealand history.

Over the weekend The Fellowship Of The Ring passed $12,989,000 at the box office to overtake Titanic's $12,967,660, which took 45 weeks to gross locally. Titanic, released in 1997, is still the world's biggest-grossing film at US$1.8 billion ($4.18 billion) when inflation is not taken into account.

Fellowship has so far earned US$768 million ($1.762 billion), making it the seventh-highest-grossing movie of all time.

The film's local gross is equivalent to nearly a third of New Zealand's population having seen it.

However, the high New Zealand box office was possibly because of repeat viewings, said Lisa Hubbard, general manager of Roadshow Film Distributors.

"I would say, given the phenomenal result, that it's people going a second or a third time."

She said the Bafta awards gave the film a second wind at the New Zealand box office and it was likely the Academy Awards (next Monday) would also encourage those people who hadn't yet seen the film to go.

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