Director David Ayer’s World War II film Fury topped the box office this weekend, dethroning David Fincher’s Gone Girl with a solid $23.5 million.  The unrelentingly brutal Brad Pitt-fronted picture had one of the best openings for a WWII film of all time, placing fourth just behind Saving Private Ryan, Inglourious Basterds, and the current champion Pearl Harbor.  It also marked Ayer’s biggest opening as a director by $10 million, and audiences were satisfied by the finished result as the film netted an A- CinemaScore.  Another of the weekend’s big new releases, the Guillermo del Toro-produced animated feature The Book of Life, pulled in $17 million and landed in third place overall, while the Nicholas Sparks romance The Best of Me scored a mere $10.2 million for fifth place, making it the lowest debut for a Sparks drama ever.

Read the full weekend box office report and get a look at the complete Top 10 after the jump.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Coming in second place was David Fincher’s Gone Girl, which fell just 33% in its third weekend with a very solid $17.8 million.  The twisted (and wildly entertaining) psychological thriller has now crossed the $100 million mark domestically, and by the end of Halloween it will beat The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to become Fincher’s top film of all time in North America.  Could a Best Picture nomination be next?

Fury unsurprisingly performed well with males, who made up 60% of its audience, and over 51% of its audience was over the age of 35.  The film marks a unique entry in the World War II genre, as it cuts no corners and rebuffs sentimentality in favor of providing a grim snapshot of what life was like in the final months of the war.  The picture begins its rollout overseas next week, where it will likely perform well due to Pitt’s starpower.

In the specialty box office realm, the buzzworthy Birdman opened in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles to a $415,000 debut, earning a whopping location average of $103,750—the second best of the year behind The Grand Budapest Hotel.  The indie satire Dear White People also performed well, bringing in $338,000 from 11 locations for a theater average of $30,702.

And in Marvel news, Guardians of the Galaxy’s worldwide total hit $733 million during its second weekend in China, passing Captain America: The Winter Soldier to become the third highest-grossing Marvel Studios film behind Iron Man 3 and The Avengers.  All hail Dancing Groot.

Take a look at the full Top 10 below:

Title

Weekend

Total

1.

Fury

$23,500,000

$23,500,000

2.

Gone Girl

$17,800,000

$107,069,000

3.

The Book of Life

$17,000,000

$17,000,000

4.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

$12,039,000

$36,871,000

5.

The Best of Me

$10,200,000

$10,200,000

6.

Dracula Untold

$9,889,000

$40,735,000

7.

The Judge

$7,940,000

$26,843,000

8.

Annabelle

$7,925,000

$74,127,000

9.

The Equalizer

$5,450,000

$89,170,000

10.

The Maze Runner

$4,500,000

$90,837,000

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