Furious 7 is fastest film to take $1 billion worldwide

Following his death in November 2013, Paul Walker's Furious 7 scenes were completed with the help of CGI

Furious 7 has broken box office records as the fastest film to take more than $1 billion (£669.5 million) worldwide.

The latest film in the Fast and Furious franchise took just 17 days to break the $1bn barrier, compared to 19 for Avengers and the final Harry Potter.

The blockbuster, starring Vin Diesel and the late Paul Walker, has also topped the US box office for a third week with $29.1m (£19.5m).

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, starring Kevin James, was second with $24m (£16.1m).

The film, which moved the shopping centre policeman's segway adventures to Las Vegas, was savaged by critics giving it a 0% score on aggregate reviews site Rotten Tomatoes.

Low-budget, social media-themed thriller Unfriended took third place over the weekend with $16m (£10.7m) - 16 times the film's modest production budget.

It marks another success story for production company Blumfeld, which has already made the highly profitable but low budget films The Purge, Ouija and The Boy Next Door.

Kevin James arrived at the New York premiere of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 in character and on a segway

At the other end of the scale, Tom Hardy's Soviet thriller Child 44 took just $600,000 (£402,000) across 510 cinemas.

With a budget of $50m (£33.5m) it means the film could be one of the year's biggest flops.

Rounding out the weekend's top five were Home with $10.3m (£6.9m) and The Longest Ride with $6.9m (£4.6m).

According to box office tracker Rentrak and studio estimates, top film Furious 7 has already taken almost $300m in the US and Canada alone.

Furious 7 stars Vin Diesel and Jason Statham alongside the late Paul Walker and Michelle Rodgriguez

Rentrak's Paul Dergarabedian said the film "set a new standard" for this time of year, adding: "These are summer-style numbers in April."

He said Furious 7 had "truly become part of movie folklore with its record setting numbers, strong reviews, spectacular word-of-mouth and of course the outpouring of support for late star Paul Walker".

A song from the Furious 7 soundtrack - Wiz Khalifa's See You Again, featuring Charlie Puth - has also been breaking records.

It got more Spotify streams in 24 hours than any other track in the US, and also topped the UK singles chart on Sunday as the fastest-selling single of 2015 so far.