'Fury' battles to top of box office list

FINAL UPDATE, 1:32 PM: Fury ended the weekend at $23.7M for Sony and QED, so it underperformed all the tracking (gee what a surprise), social media metrics, and expectations just a little. But it will likely still make money 

'Fury' impresses as both a good piece of cinematic art – and a great piece of action-thriller filmmaking.

Brad Pitt's World War II tank thriller Fury blew away the competition in its Friday debut, racking up $8.8 million at the box office and handily ending Gone Girl's two-week run as the No. 1 movie in the country.

The "gangs" in Fury, of course, are the American and German armies. The film takes place in April 1945, the last month of World War II. Commanding the eponymous killing machine is a quietly complicated sergeant nicknamed "Wardaddy." Brad Pitt plays him 

Thanks to an army of older males, David Ayer's Fury won the North American box office battle with $23.5 million from 3,173 theaters, toppling Gone Girl from the top spot and delivering one of the best openings of all time for a