Hugh Grant wears a Pinion Axis II

In The Gentlemen, Hugh Grant plays Fletcher, a sleazy private investigator and would-be screenwriter who corners Ray, the right-hand man to a cannabis baron, and tries to blackmail him for twenty million pounds, pitching the whole scheme as a film script. Guy Ritchie frames most of the 2020 movie as Fletcher's narrated pitch.

Fletcher's watch was built for the film. Pinion, a small English independent, was shortlisted to work with the production's costume department on a bespoke bronze Axis II with a black dial, a stocky 42 millimetre case on a matching black leather strap. Pinion called Hugh Grant a respected watch aficionado who loved the look of it, which fits a man known off screen for collecting Panerai and Piaget.

When Pinion announced the collaboration it admitted it did not yet know how much screen time the watch would get. It got some. Time and Tide and Oracle Time both spotted the bronze Pinion on Grant's wrist, and Oracle Time made the point that the odd case metal and the little-known brand set Fletcher apart from a gangster crew otherwise in Rolex.