Movies & Watches: Panerai Edition

Movies & Watches: Panerai Edition

Posted by Matt OCallaghan on

Movie Stars and Watches- Panerai Edition

Welcome to this special article all about your favourite movies and the watches that the movie stars wear. We will take you on a small journey showing you how different makes of watches play an important role in movies.

You can’t beat it beat it can you? A visit to the local cinema does everybody the world of good. The build up before the release of a big blockbuster movie, the excitement arriving at the cinema, the smell of popcorn that fills the air in the cinema foyer and the best bit of all, sitting down and relaxing for a good couple of hours to a movie and forgetting the stresses of everyday life. We are lucky enough to have two great local cinemas around Boston Lincolnshire, West End Cinema and The Kinema in the Woods. Both with completely different personalities and both that give a wonderful experience for us movie fans.

Being in the trade though does make you look for things most people don’t take much notice of while watching television or movies such as the brands of jewellery actors and actresses are wearing but my favourite thing I look out for are watches. Everybody wears them and you can tell a lot about a person from the type of watch they wear. You can tell if they are a trend setter, successful, sporty etc.

So let me tell you about different watch brands and the movie stars who love to wear them. For this update we will be looking at the Panerai watch brand.

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Giovanni Panerai founded Officine Panerai in Florence, Italy in 1860 and became the official supplier to the Royal Italian Navy supplying watches and high precision instruments during the first and second world war. At auction and in the collectors market, some of these older models, particularly those produced in the 1940s and 50s have sold for very high prices.

The first time I saw a Panerai watch in a movie was in the 1995 movie Daylight. The star of the movie was Sylvester Stallone who spotted and bought a Panerai Luminor in a jewellers in Rome in 1995 to wear during shooting of the film.

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Sylvester Stallone on set of 1995 movie Daylight with his Panerai watch

What really spurred the worldwide popularity of the brand was actor Sylvester Stallone’s admiration for the Panerai collection and subsequent personal request to have Panerai produce special edition watches with his signature on the case back, the model was called Slytech, offering some as gifts to friends and to the film crew. These watches if you ever come across one are very rare and highly collectable with prices starting around £9,000

Thanks to his love of the watch brand it now has appeared in many of his biggest films. Here’s a few I’ve spotted! Have I missed any?!

rambo

2008 movie Rambo with a very rare PVD Panerai Luminor Marina

expendables

2010 movie The Expendables wearing a Panerai Luminor

The next on my list is another famous action star, Jason Statham who before getting into movies was a professional diver for 12 years. He also got the Panerai bug and as with Sylvester Stallone, wears the watch brand in his biggest hit movies proudly displaying it every chance he gets!

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The Transporter trilogy 2002-2008 shows that the Panerai Luminor looks good in a suit!

jason

Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone both wearing Panerai in 2008 movie The Expendables

Next up is the highest grossing actor of 2013 and wrestler Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. He is another action hero with over 25 movies to his name proudly wearing his Panerai watch in his biggest films. To many the Panerai watch case can make a wrist look small, not on Dwayne’s wrist he can carry the huge Panerai watch case off with ease thanks to his 6ft 5 large muscled frame. During my visits to the cinema I’ve noticed him wearing his Panerai watches in a couple of his movies.

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is wearing a Panerai Luminor Submersible in the big blockbuster Fast 5

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Dwayne shown here in G.I Joe Retaliation wearing a the 44mm Panerai Luminor Submersible

The last action hero (see what I did) on my list is one of the biggest action stars in the world, professional bodybuilder and two term governor of California. It is of course Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the most recognised actors in cinema history “Arnie” has always had an eye for luxury and his taste for watches is no different…

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“The Governator” with Vanessa Williams in hit 1996 film Eraser complete with Luminor Marina Panerai

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone have been friends throughout their movie careers and together with Bruce Willis and Demi Moore decided to launch Planet Hollywood, a themed restaurant in New York in the year 1991 and was a huge success. In 1996 during an opening party for Planet Hollywood, Berlin, Sylvester Stallone presented his good friend Arnold with a gift….not just any gift it was of course a special Panerai watch and a model close to Stallone’s heart, the Slytech model. Since then Arnie has become a huge fan of the brand and proudly wears it in his blockbuster movies such as 1996 hit Eraser.

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Sylvester Stallone presenting Arnie with a Panerai Slytech watch

Picture thanks to PaneraiWorld

Just like his good friend, Arnold still proudly wears the watch brand to this day as this picture below shows he loves to wear them off set too with his good friend Boris! during the London Olympics.

34Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing his Panerai with Boris Johnson and a photo bomber

 

'Anonimo' Watches

The Panerai brand has a rich history starting way back in 1860 when Giovanni Panerai opened his watchmaker’s shop in Florence, Italy. It had a similar setup to our very own shop, it was a shop downstairs with a workshop above. Moving forward to modern times Panerai moved it’s production of watches to Switzerland, but in doing so left a lot of the skilled watchmakers and case makers back in Italy. Many of them had families and others that simply wanted to stay in Florence so they made a move to a watch company called Anonimo since they were also based in Florence. The Anonimo watch company was founded in Florence in 1997 who happily took on the skill and craftsmanship of these local watchmakers from the Panerai watch company and to this day continue to make high end quality watches but in small quantities. In fact as few as 4000 watches are made per year world wide which makes them highly valuable and rare. Naturally the word Anomino is an Italian word which means ‘anonymous’ in English. The reason for this is because they didn’t want to sell the watch for it’s name but rather for it’s quality and individuality.

Here at S.T Hopper we have been lucky enough to have had a pristine Anonimo watch complete with its original box and papers. Sitting proudly with the rest of our high quality prestigepre-owned watches.

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Limited Edition number 81 of only 98 made worldwide! Only at S.T Hopper

So there we have it, a small look at a huge world of watches and their relationships with movies. So next time you go to the cinema take a look at what your favourite movie star is wearing. As I said at the beginning of this article a watch can tell you a lot about the wearer. So in true movie review fashion I’ll give you my personal review of the Panerai watch brand.

Panerai/Anonimo Watch Review

Cue movie review intro music…..The Panerai watch is for the man who is a keen watch enthusiast who has a keen eye for detail from the skilled craftsmanship of the watch movement, down to the fine finishing of the case. This watch is a must for a man who is very active, who wants toughness and durability that wont let him down even in the most treacherous of conditions. Are you a person who enjoys or seeks adventure?! Then this is the ultimate watch for you! The same goes for the Anonimo watch brand, made to the highest of standards and very rare timepieces. A must for any watch enthusiast.

Until next time, enjoy your visit to the movies

support your local cinema

As this is a movie special we better not forget some much needed details/stats just like you would find on any movie database!

Details

Official Site: http://www.panerai.com/en/

Number of times Panerai is mentioned in article: 30

Average price of a Panerai watch: £4,000-£5,000

Number of movies mentioned: 9

Total worldwide gross of all movies mentioned: $2,029,139,540

Days to write article: 2

S.T HOPPER WILL RETURN IN…..MOVIE STARS & WATCHES- OMEGA EDITION!

Great care has been taken to make sure these images do not infringe any copyright laws. If somehow we have used one of your images please contact us and we will remove it immediately. Thank you

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