Fans gearing up for Cameron's Avatar

With the success of mega hits like, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and District 9, fans across the world are clamoring over the debut of the long-awaited James Cameron sci-fi movie Avatar.

As the two-minute trailer made its way online, fans flooded social networking sites to rave over what they had seen.

Fans in Australia and New Zealand were the first to preview 16 minutes of what many are calling the biggest hit of Cameron's career. With a budget over $300 million Cameron's Avatar is the most expensive movie ever made, surpassing the former record holder Titanic. (Also a Cameron movie.) The technology used to create the 3D film are said to surpass anything to date.

Twentieth Century showed the preview footage in theaters around the world Friday but only to fans who scored free tickets online to "Avatar Day."

"It was really an idea that James CameronJames Cameron had to give the audience a unique opportunity to immerse themselves into this world," said Jeffrey Godsick, executive vice president of marketing for Fox.

Avatar tells the story of humans who embody avatars to explore the spectacular, but otherwise unsafe, planet of Pandora.

The extended preview was shown on 102 screens domestically and 342 internationally. The event included 58 countries.

Tickets to Friday’s "Avatar Day" sold out less than 24 hours after they were made available. When the official website launched on Monday, the demand for the tickets was at such a fever pace, the site crashed under the onslaught of ticket-hungry fans.

The same thing happened to when the trailer went live on Apple.com.

The film is set for a December 2009 release.