New Line International's The Lord Of The Rings: The Return OfThe King has become thethird biggest grossing film of all time with a worldwide running total of$942.7m.

The fantasy finale added $11.1m at the weekend from 4,352 screensin 58 markets for a $591.5m international box office and $4.3m in domestic fora $351.1m total.

It has now overtaken the international total of trilogypredecessor The Two Towers, which finished on $583m, and is expected to pass $600m ininternational within a week.

Beyond that, the film looks good to pass $1bn in global ticketsales with the Japanese bow set for Feb 14.

The Two Towers grossed just over $65m in that territory last year and The ReturnOf The King took $3.6min previews last Friday (6). This amount was not factored into the internationalgross but will be added into the film's opening weekend gross when figures arereported next week.

In its thirdweek in Italy, The Return Of The King added $3.4m, slipped 50% and fell one place to second for a$29m running total. It has already overtaken the $26.9m final total of TheTwo Towers.