The Cost of Being Batman!

Hello, everybody! I was thinking of different posts I could create for the blog, and remembered some pretty cool data I came across. I’ve always been a big fan of the Batman: Dark Knight movie trilogy, but have always wondered, could Bruce Wayne really afford all of those cool gadgets? If you haven’t seen the movies, I don’t think there are any real ‘spoilers’ in this post, but if you’d rather wait and watch the movies, do it! It’s worth it.

In the attached photo, you can see some rough estimates on the cost of being Batman. What I did was try to organize the data. I added up all the costs from Batman’s first year, from when he created this superhero and saved Gotham the first time in Batman Begins. This includes his Batsuit, the Tumbler (bat-mobile), his costs of living, gadgets, and training.

In year two, you will notice a huge jump in expenses. According to this article, it would have cost a whopping $600,000,000 to rebuild Wayne Manor after it burnt down. I gave Bruce the benefit of the doubt, and created two sets of data for this reason: One with fire insurance (green), one without (red). Also, I’ve only added the cost of living and his new vehicle, although he did get a new Batsuit and some extra little gadgets.

For the next few years, I’ve only added the cost of living, as Batman went MIA for 8 years after year 2 in The Dark Knight.

In the final movie (year 10), Batman’s biggest expense was his new vehicle, the Bat, which creates another little jump in expenses.

This post is just to kind of put things in perspective! A fun project might be to introduce this data to your students, and have them do a little research on Bruce Wayne’s inheritance and yearly salary, to find out when Bruce Wayne could finally pay-off his expenses of being Batman!