Things may be tough economically around the globe, but the major Hollywood film distributors still managed to gross record high overseas box office in 2008, garnering an estimated $9.9 billion, up 4% from 2007’s $9.5 billion international total.

Overseas operations of the six major studios — Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal, 20th Century Fox, Sony and Disney — each bagged more than $1 billion in revenue for the second consecutive year, according to preliminary estimates from each distributor.

Paramount Pictures International generated the most foreign revenue with an estimated $2.037 billion, an increase of 28.2 percent from 2007 — a new international record for the studio. It is the first time Paramount, which ranked fourth among the big six in 2007, crossed the $2 billion overseas boxoffice threshold.

The biggest single title on the international circuit last year was Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” which bowed May 21, and went on to gross $469.5 million foreign (versus $317 million domestic), according to Paramount figures.

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