“Avatar” broke Russia’s box office record, overtaking the domestic comedy “Irony of Fate 2” less than a month after the release of James Cameron’s futuristic 3-D adventure, Booker’s Bulletin said Wednesday.

“Avatar” grossed more than $70 million from Dec. 16, when it opened in Moscow, to Jan. 10, the industry research group said.

The movie has played on a record 1,330 screens in the former Soviet Union, excluding Ukraine and the Baltic states, according to Russian Film Business Today magazine.

The film showed on 353 screens in 3-D, including IMAX, which yielded just over half of its opening gross, the magazine reported.

“Avatar is unique because people think of it as a 3-D amusement ride not a movie so the popularity is unprecedented,” Boris Babushkin, editor of Booker’s Bulletin magazine, said by phone from Yekaterinburg.

 News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox and partners Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Film Partners have spent more than $380 million to make and market “Avatar,” which was shot using a dual-camera 3-D system that Cameron invented with partner Vince Pace.

“Avatar” has taken in more than $1.3 billion worldwide, second only to “Titanic,” which grossed $1.84 billion, according to Hollywood.com.