The film went on to gross $5,887,457 domestically, much less than the production budget of $18 million. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 7.59/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Tim Burton and Johnny Depp team up to fête the life and work of cult hero Ed Wood, with typically strange and wonderful results." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert gave a largely positive review: "What Burton has made is a film which celebrates Wood more than it mocks him, and which celebrates, too, the zany spirit of 1950s exploitation films, in which a great title, a has-been star and a lurid ad campaign were enough to get bookings for some of the oddest films ever made." Ebert and Gene Siskel gave the film "Two Thumbs Up" on "Siskel and Ebert", with Siskel calling it "a tribute to creative passion and also to friendship" and "one of the year's very best". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" praised Burton's decision to not make a direct satire or parody of Wood's life. "Ed Wood is Burton's most personal and provocative movie to date," he wrote. "Outrageously disjointed and just as outrageously entertaining, the picture stands as a successful outsider's tribute to a failed kindred spirit." Janet Maslin, writing in "The New York Times", thought Johnny Depp "proved" himself as an established "certified great actor". "Depp captures all the can-do optimism that kept Ed Wood going, thanks to an extremely funny ability to look at the silver lining of any cloud." Todd McCarthy from "Variety" called "Ed Wood" "a fanciful, sweet-tempered biopic about the man often described as the worst film director of all time. Always engaging to watch and often dazzling in its imagination and technique, picture is also a bit distended, and lacking in weight at its center. The result is beguiling rather than thrilling." Richard Corliss, writing in "Time" magazine, gave a negative review. "The script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski posits Wood as a classic American optimist, a Capraesque hero with little to be optimistic about, since he was also a classic American loser.