LOS ANGELES - MAJOR Hollywood studios defied the global economic meltdown to rake in record overseas profits in 2008 at about US$9.9 billion (S$14.4 billion), a four-per cent increase from US$9.5 billion in 2007, according to media reports published on Friday.

Citing preliminary distributor estimates, the Hollywood Reporter said the six major Hollywood studios - 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers - each exceeded US$1 billion in revenue for their overseas operations in 2008 for the second consecutive year.

Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount Pictures International) topped foreign revenue with US$469.5 million abroad, compared to US$317 million for US distribution.

Batman movie The Dark Knight bagged US$465 million overseas for Warner Brothers International.

Paramount broke the US$2 billion overseas box office threshold for the first time, garnering US$2.037 billion, up 28.2 per cent from 2007.

The North American box office market was relatively stable, with US$9.59 billion in revenue, down slightly from the record US$9.66 billion in 2007, according to online industry specialist boxofficemojo.com.

But due to an increase in movie ticket prices, the numbers conceal reduced attendance in movie theatres: 1.35 billion seats were sold in 2008, down from 1.4 billion the previous year.

The last North American silver screen record was in 2002, when 1.57 billion tickets were sold.

The top three films in 2008 for North America were the Batman sequel (US$530 million), Iron Man (US$318.3 million) and the Indiana Jones sequel (US$317 million). -- AFP