WTC movie giveth and taketh

After the discussion at lunch yesterday about the movie World Trade Center, I did some digging. Turns out that as a matter of fact, Nicholas Cage donated his earnings: "I gave my salary, after taxes and commissions, to The American Red Cross because I didn't want to do it for any other reason than to try to be healing in some way. That was the spirit of it." Story

And although not much of the profits went to charity, a small amount did. 10% of the earnings from the first 5 days of the movie’s showing went to various 9/11 charities. rottentomatoes.com:

BOX OFFICE HISTORY

Week Rank Wkd. Gross Theaters Per Theater Cumulative
Week #1 3 $18,730,762 2,957 $6,334 $26,531,879
Week #2 3 $10,901,350 2,998 $3,636 $45,105,868

Box office cumulative figures also include daily grosses from Monday through Thursday (not shown).

That’s a pretty good bit of money, but that is “gross” income, not “net”. I’m not sure which figure they’re going with to determine how much money each charity gets. So there you go, that’s the breakdown. And go you, Nicholas Cage…I like him. I do, in fact, plan to support him in his current paid box office role in “The Wicker Man.” But as for World Trade Center…I’d rather just toss my seven bucks straight to charity.