Warner Bros. to donate to Aurora shooting victims
A view of fans waiting outside for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Midnight Premiere at Various Locations on July 19, 2012 in New York City.
Warner Bros. is reportedly planning on making a donation to victims of the Aurora shooting, which took place during a showing of the studio's latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the amount would be "substantial."
According to the site's information, the donation will be a lump sum – i.e., not a share of the movie's total profits, as some had suggested.
The money will go to the Aurora Victims' Relief Fund, which The Denver Post says has been set up to provide immediate and long-term help to victims, their families and the broader community.
Immediately after the shooting, Warner and other studios said they would hold off announcing box-office figures out of consideration for the victims.
More from GlobalPost: Warner Bros. cancels Batman premiere after shooting
Anonymous sources, however, leaked early results to the press, and as soon as Sunday morning The Dark Knight Rises was widely reported to have enjoyed one of the most successful opening weekends in history – coverage which some critics found distasteful.
"The movie's going to gross over a billion dollars worldwide by the time it leaves theaters," wrote an angry Connor Simpson on The Atlantic Wire. "You can spare $20 million, Warner."
The studio looks set to face at least one lawsuit as a result of the shooting: a lawyer for one of the survivors told TMZ that his client planned to sue Warner Bros. for making a violent movie that – the lawyer claims – the gunman partly mimicked. Moviegoer Torrence Brown, Jr., who was uninjured in the attack, also plans to sue the Century 16 movie theater and the suspect's doctors, said his attorney, Donald Karpel.
Anticipating similar criticism, Warner has already made changes to its next blockbuster: Variety quotes a source as saying that the studio decided to cut an eerily prescient scene from Gangster Squad, due out in September, in which gunmen open fire on a movie-theater audience.
More from GlobalPost: Batman screening ends in panic after fight breaks out
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