At the time of its initial movie release, Tora! Tora! Tora! was thought to be a box office flop in North America,[REF] although its domestic box office of $29,548,291 made it the ninth highest-grossing film of 1970 [REF].
Roger Ebert felt that Tora! Tora! Tora! was "one of the deadest, dullest blockbusters ever made" and suffered from not having "some characters to identify with."