may not be a bad dragon". The waltz was scrapped in favor of tracks used earlier in the movie. The score was widely praised. Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker that the score was a "beauty", and that "at times, the music and the fiery dragon seem one". Royal S. Brown of Fanfare Magazine praised the soundtrack as "one of the best scores of 1981". On April 22, 2010, a limited-edition soundtrack CD was released on La-La Land Records. Reception Box office The film grossed just over $14 million in the US with an estimated budget of $18 million. It later became a cult film. Critical response At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 83% score based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critic consensus reads, "An atypically dark Disney adventure, Dragonslayer puts a realistic spin — and some impressive special effects — on a familiar tale." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The book Flights of Fancy: The Great Fantasy Film says: "Dragonslayer is a compelling and often brilliant fantasy film [... but] it seeks, as well, to impose modern sensibilities on its medieval characters and plot—twentieth-century political, sociological, and religious sensibilities which only serve to dilute its particular strengths." Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film three stars out of four in their respective print reviews. Siskel praised the "dazzling special effects" and the "convincing portrait by Ralph Richardson of the aged magician Ulrich", and Ebert called the scenes involving the dragon "first-rate". Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called Vermithrax "the greatest dragon yet", and praised the film for its effective evocation of the Dark Ages. David Denby of New York praised Dragonslayers special effects and lauded the film as being much better than Excalibur and Raiders of the Lost Ark. David Sterritt of The Christian Science Monitor praised the sets and pacing of the film, and criticized it for lack of originality, stressing that MacNicol's and Richardson's characters bore too many similarities to the heroes of Star Wars. A similar critique was given by John Coleman of the New Statesman, who called the film a "turgid sword-and-sorcery fable, with Ralph Richardson in a backdated kind of Star Wars of Alec Guinness role". Tim Pulleine of the Monthly