Need For Speed: Automobili Pininfarina created one-of-a-kind ‘Gotham’ and ‘Dark Knight’ versions of their Battista hyper GT ($3.6 million) and B95 hyper Barchetta ($5.2 million) hypercars.
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Warner Bros. brought the Gotham City billionaire’s world to life in an immersive luxury ‘retailtainment.’
By Simone Melvin, Forbes Staff
The nearly $22 million townhouse on West 17th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood may look familiar as the fictional home of Succession’s Roman Roy, but for one week this month, it was standing in as the home of another fictional billionaire—Gotham City’s most famous resident, Bruce Wayne. The sleek apartment was filled with the kind of if-you-have-to-ask-you-can’t afford it toys and gadgets you might expect Batman’s alter ego to own, including the world’s fastest e-bike ($29,995), a military-grade encrypted set of phones ($16,500), and a bespoke Alpange piano ($100,000). Everything in the home has a scannable barcode because everything is available to purchase.
The shoppable showroom was part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s nascent gamble on luxury “retailtainment,” a collaboration with the New York-based marketing firm Relevance International called the Wayne Enterprises Experience. “It’s a bit of a fantasy,” says Relevance International CEO Suzanne Rosnowski, who helped curate the invitation-only immersive experience, “as if the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog came to life.”
Within the 11,000-square-foot home, Warner Bros. and Relevance International created a space with $40 million worth of luxury goods for Batman fans who dream of living like Bruce Wayne. “I used to look at pictures of this home all the time,” says a passerby, who used to work in New York real estate. “It definitely looks like a place where Bruce Wayne would live.”
Hot Wheels: The Revolution W ($29,995) purports to be the fastest e-bike in the world, and sits a few feet away from an 8-foot-tall Karen Atta sculpture ($79,000).
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Inside the five-bedroom, 12-bathroom townhouse, a gold Pininfarina supercar ($5.2 million) is parked inside the narrow garage. Next to it is a diagram of a similar-looking, one-of-a-kind Batmobile-inspired model for guests to order.
Within the first hour of the shopping experience (tours ran three times a day and lasted nearly two hours), actors playing Lucius Fox (the fictional CEO of Wayne Enterprises) and Alfred Pennyworth (Bruce Wayne’s butler) guide visitors across dark, mirrored floors through blue and black sleek Baxter décor and six-foot-tall cast resin art structures.
Several rooms in the house play music on McIntosh stereos, with one room containing $1 million worth of equipment. McIntosh happens to rent the townhouse—now more commonly known as the House of Sound—for $100,000 a month. When not serving the Bruce Wayne Experience, the House of Sound is used as an event space for musicians, among others. A manager of the townhouse claims that Justin Timberlake has been to the property three times since last September.
Then there is the basement, which is renovated to look like the Batcave with shiny black rock walls that surround nearly $28 million worth of jewelry.
Safe Keeping: The $28 million jewelry collection includes “Mr. Wayne’s Ring” (a 5.63-carat diamond worth $333,500), “Martha Wayne’s Pearl Necklace” ($42,000), and the “Poison Ivy Bracelet” (2.11 carats worth $333,500)—all from Scott West Natural Color Diamonds.
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“This experience is for superfans,” says Robert Oberschelp, head of consumer products for Warner Bros. “But not everyone wants a character on their apparel.”
First conceived in 2020—when the luxury goods market was soaring—the Bruce Wayne Experience lasted eight days with an invitation list of fewer than 250 “tastemakers, people loyal to brands in the house, VIPs from the Relevance list, and those well-versed in luxury,” according to Rosnowski.
“The intent is not to be in any way exclusionary,” she adds, repeatedly petting the sides of the fluffy chair she sits on inside Bruce Wayne’s bedroom. “However, he is a luxury character. He embodies certain levels of, you know, fantastical wealth.”
In 2013, the last time Forbes did a valuation of the Fictional 15—a list of ultra-wealthy characters ranging from Charles Foster Kane to Tony Stark to Richie Rich—Bruce Wayne ranked sixth, with an estimated fortune of $9.2 billion. Eleven years later, thanks in large part to the rise of defense contractors, Forbes estimates that Wayne’s fictional fortune has soared to $32 billion, placing him in the company of another young heir, Walmart’s Lukas Walton ($30.8 billion) and a fellow major philanthropist, MacKenzie Scott ($35.3 billion).
Best Cellar: The “batcave” in the basement of Bruce Wayne’s New York townhouse features various toys and gadgets, including a Batmobile figure, a metal Batarang, and a Batman i989 Modular Utility Grapnel.
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Oberschelp says that the growing market for limited-edition luxury goods inspired Warner Bros. to comb through its IP for an opportunity to cash in and Wayne, who debuted in Detective Comics No. 27 in March 1939, was the natural choice.
Both Rosnowski and Claudia D’Arpizio, the lead author of Bain’s annual luxury report, say that ultra-high net worth individuals are looking for “money-can’t-buy” experiences.
“The assumption is that the ultra-wealthy probably have more available money than they do time,” D’Arpizio says. “There is a big need from brands to create more buzz and to put more innovation on the experiential part.”
“I think it’s going to be the future of retail,” Rosnowski adds, although she declined to say how much merchandise was sold during the duration of the event. “Everyone is showing that they have an appetite for this.”
Still, customer data is largely a collaborative process for the Bruce Wayne Experience. “Young inheritors who come into money quickly tend to buy pieces like this,” says a representative for Scott Diamonds, holding up a three-stone $9.2 million purple-and-green 18-carat diamond ring called “The Joker Purple.”
Beware of Catwoman: Two more Scott West Diamonds pieces include the $377,200 Poison Ivy Ring and a $4.3 million natural red diamond from Australia called The Superhero Red Shield.
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The jewels are the last part of the Wayne Enterprises Experience before the guests move up to the balcony and toast champagne as the sun sets over Manhattan. Finally, they take the elevator to the basement, where an actress pretending to be one of the guests reveals herself as Catwoman and holds the visitors hostage in exchange for a diamond ring. The theatrics end when Lucius tricks Catwoman into leaving with a fake diamond.
Before the guests head up, the jeweler allows them try on a few pieces, including a 3-carat blue diamond called “The Gotham Blue Ring” ($11 million) and the accessory that interested Catwoman: A 3.16-carat square yellow diamond labeled “Kryptonite ring” ($800,400). But that may belong to a guy who lives in Metropolis.