James Cameron's 3-D extravaganza "Avatar" has helped push the Chinese mainland's half-yearly box-office earnings to a new high, statistics have shown.

The mainland cinema saw a profit of 4.4 billion yuan (US$648 million) during the January 1-June 20 period, Guangzhou Daily reported Sunday.

"Avatar" alone generated 1.35 billion yuan, topping the box-office chart of the first half of the year and becoming a major contributor to the year-on-year increase of 1.85 billion yuan.

Domestic martial-arts film "Ip Man 2" ranks second with a distant earning of 230 million yuan, while Hollywood blockbusters prove their moneymaking power with "Alice in Wonderland", "Iron Man 2", "Clash of the Titans", and "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" rounding out the top six.

The rest of the films on the top 10 list are domestically made. They are: "Little Big Soldier" (7th); "14 Blades" (8th); "Go Lala Go!" (9th); and "Once upon a Chinese Classic" (10th).

Han Sanping, chairman of China Film Group, the country's major film distributor, predicted earlier that the mainland's 2010 box-office takings would reach the ground-breaking mark of 10 billion yuan (US$1.47 billion).

Sunday's report shows that the box office is well on track to reach that goal as the second six months contain two of the most profitable periods of the year - the summer season and the New Year season.

A lineup of long-awaited films are set for release later this year, including Feng Xiaogang's IMAX film "Aftershock", Jiang Wen's gangster drama "Let the Bullets Fly", as well as Wong Kar-Wai's action film "The Grand Master".