Jesse Williams wears a Maurice de Mauriac Diver Time Traveller

Charlie Kincaid finds a superhero's lair under his house, and the superhero turns out to be his dad. Secret Headquarters (2022) is Paramount's family adventure in the mold of The Goonies, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman of Catfish fame, with Owen Wilson as the Guard, Walker Scobell as Charlie in the same year he made The Adam Project, Michael Peña as the villain Ansel Argon, and Jesse Williams, twelve seasons of Grey's Anatomy behind him, as Sean Irons. Hodinkee, reviewing the film's wrists rather than its plot, called it "a horological party."

The watches are no accident. Joost and Schulman are collectors; Joost turned up to Hodinkee's interview in a Royal Oak and wore a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms on set, Schulman came in a gold Datejust on leather, and the production brought in Carlton DeWoody, fresh off launching Maurice de Mauriac's Racquet Limited Edition Rallymaster, as what Hodinkee called "a horological advisor of sorts." That is the documented path by which a small Zurich independent ended up in a PG superhero movie: Hodinkee identifies Irons's watch as the Maurice de Mauriac Chrono Modern Diver Time Traveller and ran a Paramount still of Williams wearing it. In the film's frames it reads as a dark-cased diver on his left wrist, sitting in among the tactical kit.

Around it the film assembled a real little collection. Peña's Argon wears a black Urwerk UR100, Big Mac a G-Shock GA900-4A, Maya a military-style Timex, and Wilson's Guard a vintage Heuer Autavia 2446C that belonged to Joost himself. The director lent his own 1960s chronograph to the production, an explosion stunt in the Georgia woods popped its bezel off into the night, the bezel was never found, and the finished film alternates between bezel and no bezel depending on the scene. Joost told Hodinkee how he had pitched the watch to Wilson: "Here's this vintage Heuer. In my mind, it was a gift from your character's father."