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(Courtesy of BallerStatus.com)

The Christmas weekend at the movies shattered previous box office records, as moviegoers flocked to theaters to see new releases like “Sherlock Holmes,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” “It’s Complicated”, and previously released films.

Over the weekend, movies brought in an estimated $278 million in revenue, breaking the previous record of roughly $253 million set in July 2008, the weekend “The Dark Knight” was released.

Despite all the big films dropping for the holidays, it was “Avatar” — in its second weekend — stealing the show, as it raked in another $75 million in ticket sales to bring its domestic total to $212 million. Experts expect the film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

“This thing is going to be playing and playing, I can tell you that,” Bert Livingston, 20th Century Fox distribution executive, told the Associated Press. “There’s a lot of business out there. Everybody’s got good movies out.”

In second place was the new “Sherlock Holmes” film, Guy Ritchie’s reboot of the franchise with Robert Downey Jr. playing the lead role. The film opened with a weekend total of $65.4 million, including a record Christmas Day debut of $24.9 million.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” opened on Wednesday (December 23), and came in at #3 with $50.2 million on the weekend and $77.1 million in its five days of release. On Wednesday, it taked in $18.8 million.

The last wide release within the top 10 was Nancy Meyer’s “It’s Complicated,” the romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. With an audience 72 percent female, the Universal film took in $22.1 million, a solid debut.

Rounding out the top 5 was George Clooney’s Up in the Air, putting in $11.7 million in its fourth week after being released to nearly 2,000 theaters on Wednesday.

Thanks to the diverse selection of films, Christmas weekend appealed to almost everyone. There was science-fiction, romantic comedy, family fare, action-packed thriller and serious awards-contender.

“That’s what fueled this Christmas, the diversity of the films,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “It was like a cinematic buffet line. If you can’t find a movie that you like in the marketplace right now, you don’t like movies.”

That wraps things up this weekend. Next weekend, you’ll have the same selection of films until after the New Years.

This weekend’s top 10 is as follows:

1 – “Avatar,” $75 million.

2 – “Sherlock Holmes,” $65.4 million.

3 – “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” $50.2 million.

4 – “It’s Complicated,” $22.1 million.

5 – “Up in the Air,” $11.8 million.

6 – “The Blind Side,” $11.7 million.

7 – “The Princess and the Frog,” $8.7 million.

8 – “Nine,” $5.5 million.

9 – “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” $5 million.

10 – “Invictus,” $4.4 million.