Weekend Box Office: FURY Tops the Weekend with $23.5 Million; GONE GIRL Crosses $100 Million

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.

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 total; $23,500,000

2. Gone Girl -$17,800,000 total $107,069,000

3. The Book of Life -$17,000,000 total-total;$17,000,000

4. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible,
No Good, Very Bad Day-
$12,039,000 total;$36,871,000

5. The Best of Me- $10,200,000 total; $10,200,000

6. Dracula Untold- $9,889,000 total; $40,735,000

7. The Judge- $7,940,000 total;$26,843,000

8. Annabelle- $7,925,000 total;$74,127,000

9. The Equalizer -$5,450,000 total; $89,170,000

10. The Maze Runner- $4,500,000 total; $90,837,000