 Before the film's release, there was already skepticism of its potential to be financially successful. Chris Taylor from Time magazine noted that video game adaptations had a poor track record at the box office and that it was Sakaguchi's first feature film. The film debuted on July 2, 2001 at the Mann Bruins Theater in Los Angeles, California, and was released in the United States on July 11, making $ 32 million in North America and going on to gross $ 85 million in worldwide box office receipts. The film achieved average to poor results at the box office in most of Southeast Asia; however, it performed well in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. In 2006 Boston.com regarded it as the 4th biggest box office bomb, estimating the film's losses at the end of its cinema run at over $ 94 million. In March 2012 CNBC considered it to be the 9th biggest box office bomb, though Time's list of the ten biggest box office failures, which was released on the same day, did not include the film.
