Make a date with John Cusack's IWC Pilot Mark XVI watch from 2012

The Swiss luxury watch brand is here to help save the day!

There are certain staples your regular action hero needs – likeability (if we’re gonna watch him get sweaty for two hours we want to be rooting for him), stamina (you don’t want him collapsing cos he needs a Red Bull) and some kind of sidekick (female, child or animal – he’s not fussy as long as you appreciate his wisecracks). These are the basic ingredients of the plot, but when it comes to the guy’s clothes things are less fussy. Bruce rocked a vest in the Die Hard movies for god’s sake (think about it – a vest, who wears those anymore?) and yet while there’s no dress code for saving the day, there is one thing most heroes don’t like to leave home without – their watch.

And we’ve had all kinds over the years strapped around the wrist of our toughest screen stars. Some hi-tech and futuristic (such as the Alien Android watch from Equilibrium) to the more classic and traditional (like the Oris from Constantine), from those synonymous with their wearer (like Omega and James Bond or Tag Heuer Monaco and Steve McQueen) to those that are specific to the movie itself (Bruce Wayne’s dual-faced Jaeger Le Coultre in The Dark Knight being a metaphor for his dual personality – or so we’re told). And the latest to join the ranks is the IWC Pilot Mark XVI watch as worn by John Cusack in disaster flick, 2012.

Luxury Swiss brand, IWC (International Watch Company) has been churning out high-end watches for nearly a century and a half and as such has polished quite an impressive reputation. Hollywood certainly seems to think so, IWC having scored prominent placements in a number of top modern movies including Mr and Mrs Smith (the IWC Spitfire Chronograph as seen on Brad Pitt), Lucky Number Slevin (the IWC Aquatimer Chronograph on Josh Hartnett) and Jamie Foxx even wore two (the Portuguese Chronograph and Aquatimer Chronograph) in Miami Vice.

Tom Cruise (who’s a bit of a watch slut having worn virtually every brand under the sun onscreen) isn’t immune to IWC’s charms, having tried on the massively popular IWC Mark XV in Vanilla Sky and, as fans of Roman numerals will have been able to work out, John Cusack’s XVI is the successor to this former legend. So what changes can we spot between these two generations?

Not much really (why mess with perfection?). It still has the clear, bold look described on sales blurbs as “reminiscent of an aircraft cockpit” which has helped make it a design classic; the biggest tweak probably the increase of one millimeter in the diameter, from 38 to 39, helping make the proportions seem better balanced.

Though admittedly for Cusack’s 2012 character, these probably aren’t the most important factors. The one-time Lloyd Dobler plays Jackson Curtis, an L.A writer and part-time limo driver who, like everyone else, fights for survival when the apocalypse, predicted by the Mayans to wipe out earth in 2012, arrives. Cue your typical destruction of landmarks as Jackson and a plucky few try to make it out alive, and while everything around them might be chaos, his IWC doesn’t let him down (be a pretty crap product placement if it did).

The IWC Pilot XVI is protected against the pull of magnetic fields (sorry – couldn’t help ourselves) by its soft-iron inner case and immune to displacement caused by drops in air pressure thanks to its antireflective sapphire glass making it just about the best choice to wear during worldwide devastation (y’know, in case you’re dressing for such a possibility).

This was surely what clinched the deal between the movie and IWC, as Benoit de Clerck, the President of IWC America, commented on the onscreen union: “In each of his films, and especially in 2012, Roland Emmerich [the director] has shown not only an impressive skill for story, but also incredible technical capabilities to realise the visual effects he’s envisioned,” he says. “IWC shares his passion for innovation, precision, fine details, and craftsmanship, so we’re thrilled to play a role in the film and support its release.”

Jackson wears his with a matt black crocodile leather strap and stainless steel buckle and we’ve spotted both his onscreen actual and some spot-on lookalikes. These similar ones all follow the round shape, have black dials and leather straps and come in a range of prices ensuring you’ve got just the thing for telling the time during the apocalypse (and other stuff).