Twelve years after his last work Titanic, Hollywood director James Cameron's new sci-fi epic Avatar knocked the world out by topping 1 billion dollars three weeks after its opening, the fastest ever in history.

According to its distributor 20th Century Fox, the highly budgeted 3-D movie has taken in 352.1 million U.S. dollars in North America and totaled 1.02 billion dollars worldwide till last Sunday, ranking fourth on the list of biggest box-office movies.

Blockbusters earning more than Avatar in history include Titanic (1997), with a gross of 1.84 billion dollars, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), totaling 1.12 billion, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), selling 1.07 billion.

Based on an 80-page treatment written by Cameron himself, the story is set in the future, when a paralyzed war veteran Jake, dispatched on a mission to the planet Pandora, encounters the native inhabitants there and falls in love with a blue humanoid Na'vi.

After its global premiere in mid-December, the movie was "like a runaway freight train" and kept "doing business", said Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "I think everybody has to see 'Avatar' once."

"Even people who don't normally go to the movies, they've heard about it and are saying, 'I have to see it.' Then there are those people seeing it multiple times," he added.

Avatar has also swept the box office in Asia since its debut in late December. For the first weekend of the New Year, Avatar drew 1.25 million people to the theater in South Korea, said Yonhap.

Cast member Zoe Saldana poses at the premiere of "Avatar" at the Mann's Grauman Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California December 16, 2009. [Xinhua/Reuters]

Avatar opened on Jan. 4 in China, receiving swarms of audience despite of terrible snowstorm sweeping Beijing and other northern cities.

After seeing the movie, Chinese film director Lu Chuan, who shot "City of Life and Death", a movie depicting Nanjing Massacre,said he was stunned by Avatar's pureness and simple beauty.

"The film is not a sophisticated expression of an intellectual, but a sincere outburst from an ordinary man, with simple metaphor," Lu wrote in his blog.

With the mix of live-action dramatic performance, computer-generated effects and 3-D presentation, Avatar has also set the technical world on fire.

"My inspiration is every single science fiction book I read as a kid," Cameron, who started moulding the movie in 1994, once told media in an interview.

"To be certain, I wanted a film that could encompass all my interests, from biology, technology, the environment -- a whole host of passions," he said.

Due to Cameron's persistence and patience, Avatar, having suffered production delays and fierce criticism for its floating budget, which was reportedly over 300 million dollars overall, eventually became one of the highest-grossing film of all time. Though someone thought the story was lack of creativity, Avatar gained most critics' favor.

It was reported in the United States that 83 percent of 233 professional critics had given the movie a positive review.

"Embrace the movie -- surely the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures," said Richard Corliss of TIME Magazine.

Winning 11 Oscars, Cameron's Titanic has proved a legacy. Analysts say Avatar may surprise the world again when next Award Academy ceremony commences.