Josh Brolin wears a Carl F. Bucherer Time Travel Device

The most discussed watch in Deadpool 2 (2018) is not, strictly speaking, a watch. Strapped to Cable's wrist is the time machine that drives the plot, a chunky round instrument with a steel body, brass accent rings and a domed, glowing core, and on its face, shown in what Forbes counted as two close-up cameos, sits the name of the Swiss brand Carl F. Bucherer. Josh Brolin's Cable is a soldier from the future who travels back to kill Russell, the teenage mutant played by Julian Dennison, before the man Russell becomes can take Cable's family from him. The device is how Cable gets there, and it returns in the post-credits scene, where Deadpool borrows it to tidy up some franchise history.

How a Swiss luxury watch name ended up on a comic-book time machine has a one-man answer: David Leitch. Hodinkee reported that the director "has been a CFB brand ambassador since 2013, which is how the company got into the film," and added that "it wasn't really an official product placement (Carl F. Bucherer isn't in the time machine business, at least not yet)." The brand keeps appearing where Leitch works, and fans have spotted Carl F. Bucherer watches in John Wick 2 and Atomic Blonde as well. One Reddit watch-spotter summed up the prop better than any press release: "All it says is Carl F. Bucherer on the dial. I think one of the complications is that it allows you to travel through time."

Deadpool 2 gave Brolin the strangest double bill of 2018, Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War in April and Cable a month later. David Leitch directed, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Ryan Reynolds wrote the script, and Zazie Beetz plays Domino. Brolin's screen wrists have ranged from a Timex Camper in No Country for Old Men to a Vacheron Constantin American 1921 in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The Bucherer time machine is the only one that is also a plot device.