After a two-week run at the top of the movie box office heap, “Gone Girl” from Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. (NASDAQ: FOXA) is expected to be replaced by a World War II movie, starring Brad Pitt, from Sony Corp.’s (NYSE: SNE) Columbia studio. “Fury” is opening on 3,173 screens, and Box Office Mojo predicts ticket sales of $33 million for the first weekend. The film cost $68 million to make.

“Gone Girl” posted domestic receipts of $37.5 million on its opening weekend and another $26.4 million on its second weekend. The estimate for this weekend’s gross is $19.5 million. The movie, which had a production budget of $61 million has so far posted worldwide gross ticket sales of nearly $87 million.

An animated feature from Fox is also opening in wide release this weekend. “The Book of Life” will hit 3,069 screens and is forecast to take in $19 million. The film’s production budget totaled $50 million.

The weekend’s third film in wide release is “The Best of Me” from Relativity Media. The movie is an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks (“The Bridges of Madison County”) novel and is expected to gross $15.5 million for its opening weekend on 2,936 screens.

“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Innocence),” a critically acclaimed film starring Michael Keaton and directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is opening on just four screens in New York and Los Angeles, but Box Office Mojo says the film is “primed to deliver one of the biggest per-theater averages in recent memory.”

Thus far in the fall season, which runs from the day after Labor Day through the Thursday before the first Friday in November, “Gone Girl” is the top grossing film, followed by Fox’s “The Maze Runner” with about $86 million in gross receipts and Sony’s “The Equalizer” with about $83 million.

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