After two weeks of the cool, chilling Gone Girl, audiences chose to embrace the blood and thunder of Fury this weekend.

David Ayer’s ultraviolent WWII actioner opened to a $23.5 million gross, while David Fincher’s couples’ thriller dropped down to second place with $17.8 million.

Guillermo del Toro’s animated fantasy The Book of Life took third with $17 million; Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day placed fourth with $12 million and the Nicholas Sparks weeper The Best of Me opened to a disappointing $10.2 million to land in fifth place.

Maybe people are getting tired of the patented Sparks formula. That’d be nice.