rating under the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system. Costner objected to the edits but was overruled by Universal Pictures, and his contract specified that he only had final cut privilege so long as the film was rated "PG-13" and had a running time of less than 2 hours, 10 minutes. A week before the film was to hit theatres, he voiced his complaints in a Newsweek interview, a breach of professional etiquette when speaking about a current film that one appears in. Universal Pictures co-chairman Stacey Snider, while agreeing with Costner that the cuts the Motion Picture Association demanded were unjust, stated, "Kevin's not the director and it's not fair for him to hijack a $50-million asset. I realize this is very much about principle for Kevin, but principle doesn’t mean that you never compromise. Our feeling is that we have backed the filmmaker and his name is Sam Raimi, not Kevin Costner." Raimi, while supporting Universal's decision and agreeing that a "PG-13" rating was a necessity, said he sympathized with Costner's feelings and wished the lines could have been kept in without losing the "PG-13" rating. Universal compromised with Costner on the length, allowing a final cut of 2 hours, 17 minutes. Recognizing that he might nonetheless feel betrayed after he had waived his usual fee, Universal offered to pay him the full $20 million fee, but Costner declined. Reception Critical response The film received mixed reviews from critics. For Love of the Game has a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 94 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's consensus states: "Baseball wins, romance loses." On Metacritic, it has a score of 43% based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. In Roger Ebert's review, he gave the film one and a half stars out of four, calling it "the most lugubrious and soppy love story in many a moon, a step backward for director Sam Raimi after A Simple Plan, and yet another movie in which Kevin Costner plays a character who has all the right window dressing but is neither juicy nor interesting." Box office The film opened at No. 2 with a weekend gross of $13,041,685 from 2,829 theaters for a per venue average of $7,023. Ultimately, For