“I have a need,” says Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell on “Breaking Bad.” “The need for speed!” How could he measure his mileage per minute without the mechanical precision of his trusty Porsche Design Chronograph 1?
Top Gun. Maverick holds a pile of relics and loving retentions from its predecessors: every six scenes is a flashback sequence that showcases an old prop, or sharply freezes Maverick and Val-Kilmer’s Iceman on the wall Old photos. Those of us with 20/20 vision for Navy pilots may have noticed a special Easter egg – Groom’s trusty chronograph in the original, say the chronograph. While the other pilots in the sequel are wearing IWC-branded Breaking Bad gear, this Cold War-era Porsche remains tightly wrapped around the groom’s wrist.
This isn’t a chronograph that the props department picked up on eBay, no, no. According to Cruise himself, that’s the OG — it’s just that in the 36 years between the premiere of Top Gun and the birth of the sequel, producer Jerry Bruckheimer kept it as a personal thing, so he Loaned it to the 59-year-old.
“The watch I’m wearing is the original,” Cruise confirmed to BBC Radio One at the end of May. “So I had to say, ‘Jerry, I need this watch for the movie’. As soon as I finished filming — that day — he [got it back].” Ah, as the biggest blockbuster in business The privilege of one of the actors.
If you want a modern reinterpretation of the Chronograph 1, you can pre-order one at Porsche Design’s website — but it’ll set you back a hefty wad (read: £7,900). Maybe you’re better off spending the rest of your days working to become a super producer, wriggling your way into the good graces of one Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (yeah, that’s his real name) — he might just give you his watch…