was a success at the box office, staying in U.S. theaters for 21 weeks, and grossing over $142 million worldwide. In terms of box office income, it ranked as the number one rated PG-13 film released in 1985, and number four overall. Critical response The Color Purple received positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 35 reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "It might have been better served by a filmmaker with a deeper connection to the source material, but The Color Purple remains a worthy, well-acted adaptation of Alice Walker's classic novel." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 78 based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film four stars, calling it "the year's best film". He also praised Whoopi Goldberg, calling her role "one of the most amazing debut performances in movie history" and predicting she would win the Academy Award for Best Actress; she was nominated but did not win. Ebert wrote of The Color Purple: Ebert's long-time television collaborator, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, praised the film as "triumphantly emotional and brave", calling it Spielberg's "successful attempt to enlarge his reputation as a director of youthful entertainments." Siskel wrote that The Color Purple was "a plea for respect for black women." Although acknowledging that the film was a period drama, he praised its "...incredibly strong stand against the way black men treat black women. Cruel is too kind a word to describe their behavior. The principal black men in The Color Purple use their womenboth wives and daughtersas sexual chattel." The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin noted the film's divergence from Walker's book, but made the case that this shift works: Variety found the film over-sentimental, writing, "there are some great scenes and great performances in The Color Purple, but it is not a great film. Steven Spielberg's turn at 'serious' film-making is marred in more than one place by overblown production that threatens to drown in its own emotions." In addition, some critics alleged that the film stereotyped black people in general and black men in particular, pointing to the fact that Spielberg, who is white, had directed a predominantly African-American story. In response, Spielberg said, "Most of the criticism came from directors [who]