Arnold Schwarzenegger wears an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore

Schwarzenegger helped design this watch. Not as a brand ambassador reading a script, but as a collector who wore Audemars Piguet in his own life and worked with the design team on a limited edition for the film. The Royal Oak Offshore "End of Days" is a 42mm chronograph in black PVD with yellow accents, built around the tapisserie dial that Gerald Genta established when he drew the original Royal Oak in 1972. AP released it as a production piece, not just a prop.

The film is Peter Hyams directing Schwarzenegger through a Y2K supernatural thriller. Gabriel Byrne plays Satan, who needs to conceive the Antichrist before midnight on December 31, 1999. Robin Tunney is the target. Schwarzenegger plays Jericho Cane, an alcoholic ex-cop who stumbles into the job of saving the world. Kevin Pollak and CCH Pounder fill out the supporting cast. The movie is not great, but Gabriel Byrne playing a charming Wall Street devil is better than the script deserves.

End of Days is where Schwarzenegger's on-screen watch history changes register. The mid-80s Seiko run (Commando, Raw Deal, Predator) was all affordable tool watches on blue-collar action heroes. By 1999, the character is wearing an AP that costs fifty times what those Seikos retailed for. The jump tracks with Schwarzenegger's own career through the decade: highest-paid actor in Hollywood, and the wrist followed.