The crow can’t be eaten fast enough as James Cameron‘s epic brings in over $1 billion worldwide in just 17 days at the box office, ripping past The Dark Knight. Here are some highlights below:

• Avatar made an estimated $68.3 million at the domestic BO in it’s third weekend, crushing the previous record of $45 million set by Spider-Man 3.

• Avatar‘s 3rd weekend is $28m larger than the all-time record January opening weekend.

• James Cameron will hold the #1 and #2 spots at the worldwide box office by the end of the week, making a grand total of $3 billion on two films.

• irfan over at the NeoGAF forums also did some compiling in terms of how long it took the top 5 grossers to hit the $1 billion mark. This is what he found:

  1. Titanic took 11 weeks (final: $1.84 billion)
  2. LOTR: Return of the King took 10 weeks (final: $1.12 billion)
  3. Pirates of the Caribean: Dead Man’s Chest took 10 weeks (final: $1.07 billion)
  4. Avatar took 17 days (current total: $1.02 billion)
  5. The Dark Knight only hit it with the small Janurary re-release, making just a hair over $1 billion.

• The #1 2009 domestic grosser (so far) Transformers Revenge of the Fallen took 114 days to hit $402 million. Avatar will surpass that by next weekend (21 days).

All in all it’s a lot to take in, but in our hands, we have one of the most revolutionary box office performers in history. The additional price for IMAX and 3D should be taken into effect, but it is still remarkable the speed at which it’s bringing in money. Alex Billington from First Showing also pointed out a fantastic gallery of photos taken by a LIFE photographer during Avatar’s worldwide tour. Check out some photos below and head over to the gallery for the rest.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Do you think Avatar has what it takes to become the number one grossing film of all time, beating Titanic‘s take?