Thanks to films from Marvel, DreamWorks Animation and the team of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Paramount Pictures has become the first studio to sell $1 billion worth of tickets in the domestic marketplace this year.

In its rush to dominate North America with a crew that includes Iron Man, Indiana Jones, a kung fu-fighting panda and a somewhat luckless love guru, Paramount bettered the record that it set last year by nearly three weeks.

In 2007, it took Paramount -- then fueled by "Shrek the Third" and "Transformers" -- until July 9 to get the fastest-to-$1 billion record. Sony had established the standard on July 11, 2002, on the strength of the first "Spider-Man" movie.

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