For the third week in a row, The Avengers dominated the box office. Marvel’s superheroes added another $55 million to their domestic total – putting the film over $450 million in a record-breaking seventeen days. Meanwhile, the three new releases that lined up to challenge The Avengers all struggled in the blockbuster’s wake.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 1 is the Hagrid-sized hit everyone expected it to be; although its three day estimate – at this point – won’t put it into the top five All-Time releases as was previously projected. They really missed the mark and came in sixth instead. Warner Brothers will have to be content in the knowledge that they have topped their previous Harry Potter record and bide their time until Part 2 comes out in July.

Last week I got to do something extremely cool…I got to interview Hans Zimmer in his private Los Angeles recording studio!  While I get to speak with actors and directors all the time, getting to talk with a great composer is not the norm.  And getting to speak to one where he records his music…let’s just say I jumped at the chance to make this happen.

Thankfully, Zimmer could not have been nicer and while we spoke for over twenty minutes, our interview could have been all afternoon.  That’s because as the composer of such scores as Sherlock Holmes, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (with James Newton Howard) Frost/Nixon, Inception and a ton of others….I had a million questions.

And while we talked about how he comes up with his music and all the normal questions, the best part was getting him to give me a tour of the room and show me all the equipment.  If you’re a fan of Hans Zimmer, want to write music for movies, or just a movie fan curious how composers work, you are going to absolutely love this interview.  Take a look after the jump:

Happy New Year? If you work at News Corp, oh hell yes it is! After wrapping up 2009 as the second highest-grossing domestic feature of the year (in just 14 days), director James Cameron’s Avatar skipped not a beat as it entered the new decade. The film has now claimed the all-time domestic records for both its second and third weekends and has just surpassed The Dark Knight to lock down fourth place in the all-time (not adjusted for inflation) box office charts worldwide.