The Cost of Being Batman vs. The Cost of Cleaning Up Dirty Laundry...

On Friday, one of the most anticipated movies of the year -- nay, the decade -- will be released.  We will all finally know how Director Christopher Nolan, and his co-writer and brother Jonathon Nolan, will conclude their epic version of Batman's story.  This is, they promise: The End.

I'm a huge Batman movie geek.  The various incarnations of Batman on film reflect their times.  This was the story of Batman for the Post-9/11 world.  It was a complicated, scary, violent, costly, harrowing story.  But it was cathartic for the audience.

But at it's heart, the story weaved all the familiar elements from the Batman comic books into the mix.  Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy was still the behind the mask; and Batman fought crime with an arsenal of, as a great man once put it, "wonderful toys."

The Gawker blog, io9, posted a summary of one group's calculations about what it would cost to be Batman.  Bottomline?  Well, according to them: $2.8 million.  They also calculate the Wayne fortune at $11.6 billion (yes, that's with a "b").  Which means it ain't cheap to be Batman, but he can afford it.

We could nitpick the cost a bit.  You have to wonder if they figured in the cost of keeping it all secret such as using cut-out companies to buy, manufacture, and ship goods; research and development; hush money for those who must know; routine maintenance; etc.  Being Batman can't possibly be a two or three person operation.  Although I'm sure Wayne goes to certain efforts to keep certain support personnel from knowing what they're really doing. 

But does it really cost that much to clean-up the streets?  I mean, what if you went bargain basement?  Say you had a teeny-tiny budget?  Just what would you get, and how effective would it be?  What if you had a one-person operation?  What if you even had to do your own #Dirtylaundry?

Huh.  That looked like it cost less than $25 a day!  Seems pretty cost effective to me.  Frank even got the locals to pitch in and help.  I have to wonder if the Bodega owner even really charged him for the bottle of Jack.