How Much Would It Cost To Be Batman?
While Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Batman trilogy of films presented the story of the Dark Knight in a much more grounded and “realistic” way than, for instance, the Burton films or the ’60s TV series, there were still some aspects that demanded a healthy suspension of belief.
We aren’t talking about murderous smile-scarred lunatics or a single man surviving the physical punishment of Batman’s crime-fighting career. No, we’re talking about all the gear and gadgets that allowed Bruce Wayne to become Batman (spoiler alert!). As Jack Nicholson’s Joker put it back in 1989, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”
The same could be said for the even more stripped down version we saw in The Batman with Robert Pattinson in the lead and Matt Reeves in the director’s chair. Because that movie also focused on the relative outset of his “career” we got a glimpse of how things went well, and well, not so much.
For the purposes of this piece, we’ll focus on Nolan’s The Dark Knight version mostly because that one at least took us one more step behind the corporate curtain to see how some of the stuff was at least sourced.
In keeping with Nolan’s more realistic take, the recent Batman films introduced Lucius Fox and Wayne Enterprises’ “Applied Sciences” division, a treasure trove of discontinued prototypes that covertly supplied Wayne with everything from the Tumbler to his Nomex body armor and memory-cloth cape. Eventually, they went a step beyond that as well (let’s go nuclear, baby).
But while Applied Sciences is a nifty way to solve the question of Batman’s supply lines, that stuff still has to cost a pretty penny, right? So how much would it really cost to be Batman?
The folks over at MoneySupermarket.com crunched the numbers and came up with a handy infographic that provides an answer: a freakin’ lot. I hope any aspiring crimefighters out there have been saving their pennies. Check out some of these eye-popping numbers.
While inflation and supply chain issues will come for us all, this is still a massive number. This number doesn’t quite reach a billion, so maybe Bruce Wayne still has some money left over, but anyone thinking about a Batman-esque crimefighting life might want to do a little bookkeeping first.
And if we were going to do a little Batman cost nitpicking here, it’s likely that Alfred’s $230,000 combined yearly salary is a woeful underpay for what he brings to the table (both the formal one and the Bat-table as well).
And we probably need to do multiples on everything with the Batsuit as well. Remember when Alfred suggests they buy in massive bulk to not arouse suspicion? Well, they could have thousands of suits sitting around the Batcave collecting dust. It all adds up.
But really, when we look at it, the vast majority of Batman cost analysis comes from just having Wayne Manor and physical structure of the Batcave. Heck, land (both above and below ground) ain’t cheap. So to have $600 million of the $682 million tied up in just the cost to build and maintain the grounds, you know are starting with Batman as a real estate play.
Even moving the operation out of stately Wayne Manor and into the confines of penthouse apartment buildings of Wayne Towers isn’t likely to reduce the bill all that much. Inside the city might even be more expensive when it comes to keep it hidden.
In all, if you were thinking of starting your own Batman-related enterprise, you probably want to make sure you’ve got at least a billion dollars to work with. Need to have something at least left over if it all goes south and your girlfriend tries to tank your stock, steal your nuclear reactor and blow up the city where you live.
