`WTC' movie gives $1.3M to 9/11 memorial

Associated Press

NEW YORK - The producers of "World Trade Center" are donating $1.3 million to the Sept. 11 memorial, keeping a promise to donate 5 percent of its opening weekend box receipts, the memorial foundation said Monday.

An additional $1.3 million will be split equally among three other Sept. 11-related charities.

The Paramount Pictures film, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena as two Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officers trapped for hours in the trade center rubble, opened nationwide on Aug. 9 and has earned more than $50 million at the box office so far.

The film's producers had promised the donation from its Aug. 9-13 box office proceeds.

The donation gives the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation a total of $132.3 million in private donations for a memorial budgeted at over $650 million. The foundation is expected to raise $300 million of the total; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the trade center, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. rebuilding agency are covering the rest of the costs.

Construction on the memorial began this year, and officials say it will open in 2009.

The other charities to split donations from the film are Tuesday's Children, a services organization for children who lost parents on Sept. 11; the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, created by a Sept. 11 family group and set to open next week across the street from ground zero; and the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.