Airbnb is going big on the whole movie-themed stay experience

For years, Airbnb has dabbled in novelty stays. You could rent a bed in an Ikea or a Blockbuster, you could stay in the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air mansion or the Barbie Dreamhouse. While those were generally temporary, pop-up oddities, the tech company announced today 11 new experiences—dubbed the “Icons”—that seem to be of different levels of permanence. At their summer release event this morning in Los Angeles, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky unveiled a host of locations themed around movies, celebrities, and pop culture ephemera.

First, they revealed a painstaking recreation of the house from Up, a to-scale, impressively detailed stay that does actually float (with the help of a crane). While the house will be parked in New Mexico, a preview was available for the press (and a ton of influencers) to tour at the end of the keynote presentation—Chesky joked that it flew in. In reality, it was a partial replica of the one that will be parked in the desert. Having seen it personally, I can attest to the attention to detail paid both inside and outside the property—it really does look and feel just like the movie, down to the trinkets on the mantle and Carl’s stairlift.

Likewise, a house capitalizing on the success of X-Men ’97 with a stay in the X-Mansion located in Westchester County, New York feels exactly like it does in the show. Every surface of the house was painted by hand to make the house look like a 2-D comic book, and features activities to simulate X-Men training. It does look, frankly, pretty cool. As does the Headquarters from Inside Out 2, which, luckily is hosted by Joy (though the other emotions are featured in the form of themed rooms).

Airbnb has also partnered with some museums for unique overnight trips—the stay in the Ferrari museum in Maranello, Italy manages to combine both sleeping in a race car bed and sleeping in a big bed with your wife. Similarly, they are also offering a stay in Paris’ Musée D’Orsay—literally, in the clocktower, beside the Olympic torch. Guests also get a private tour of the museum’s impressionist collection and of their Van Gogh collection. The suite also overlooks the Seine, and takes place during the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Olympics. This, honestly, seems sick.

Many of the other experiences they’re offering are kind of just hangs with celebrities. There’s an overnight stay with TikTok star Khaby Lamé, if you’re into that sort of thing. Likewise, Airbnb is offering an overnight stay with Bollywood actress Janhvi Kapoor in her house, offering unprecedented access to the most famous family in Bollywood, in the words of Chesky, and a week on a tour with reggaeton star Feid. There’s also a private, 15-guest concert with Doja Cat, and a 30-guest speakeasy set with Kevin Hart. (The latter sounds like a torture chamber to me, but to each their own.)

In perhaps the biggest coup for the tech company (or second biggest; the Musée is nuts) Chesky revealed that Airbnb had purchased the house from Purple Rain, again recreated with impressive detail, hosted by Revolution band members Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, and featuring unreleased Prince songs that can only be heard in the house. As a Prince fan, this does sound like a great experience, even if it’s one that Prince himself probably wouldn’t have loved, given his stance on streaming music and the hoopla over the not-a-hologram of him at the Super Bowl in 2018. His estate is involved with the property and must have gotten a pretty penny for it; even so, where the rest of these properties feel pretty uncomplicatedly fun, like a stay in a theme park, there is a little bit of ick factor with this one, at least for me.

Regardless, if you want to stay in one of these properties, here’s roughly how it works. Three Icons are already available to apply for today—the X-Mansion, the Up house, and the Khaby Lamé trip—while the rest will be available in the coming weeks and months. Chesky said that they will be selecting the winners based on what they write on their application. Winners will receive a digital “Golden Ticket,” giving them the opportunity to book their stay within a specific window.

At this point, it’s unclear how long each experience will be available. Given that they built the Up house, you’d imagine that it’s not really going anywhere (except into the air via crane). The Musée stay, on the other hand, is pegged to watching the Olympic opening ceremony and promises private access to one of the world’s best museums, so it seems like a one-time deal. A staff member at the event today was a little evasive when pushed on how long the Musée was going to be available, but affirmed that Airbnb is committed to giving out at least 4000 golden tickets in 2024. A lot of the stays are free, and the rest cost under $100 per guest, so that’s nice.

It also seems like there’s going to be more where these came from. Today’s presentation made a point to say that these were simply the first 11. Largely, these spaces look pretty great and have emphasized the artisans who worked to bring them to life. None of them seem to be fueling gentrification in any major cities either—another plus. And they all seem a lot cooler than a windowless Star Wars hotel in Orlando.