Spider-Man: No Way Home opens this week all over the planet. And a film premiere in Los Angeles on December 13, 2021 celebrated the highly anticipated Marvel film that comprises the third instalment of the third incarnation of Peter Parker’s alter ego, Spider-Man. In other words, this is the third time popular British actor Tom Holland has starred in the “friendly neighborhood” title role.

The plot of Spider-Man: No Way Home explores the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s so-called multiverse, calling back the previous big-screen Spider-Man incarnations starring Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in the title roles respectively. Those two film series were outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as we know it today.

The Spider-Man: No Way Home film premiere contained one more callback, but one that very likely went unnoticed by most people – except those who are both WIS and comic geeks (like me) – which involved Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Doctor Strange in this and other Marvel films, and the watch he wore.

Benedict Cumberbatch wearing the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar at the December 13, 2021 L.A. premiere of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ (photo courtesy Jaeger-LeCoultre/Getty Images)

Doctor Strange’s origin story, Doctor Strange, came to theaters 2016. The good doctor was an ultra-successful and ultra-ambitious neurosurgeon who becomes a powerful sorcerer after a car accident robs him of the use of his hands.

Before his life-altering trauma, the title character, played by an absolutely brilliant Cumberbatch, had a definite penchant for the finer things in life – including an ill-fated Lamborghini and a dresser drawer full of fine watches neatly stowed in winder cuffs. The watch he selected to wear on the fateful evening was a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual. As we discovered during the film, this watch had special meaning for him on several levels, engraved as it was with a dedication on the back: “Time will tell you how much I love you, Christine.”

Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar in stainless steel

Time, of course, is one of the overriding themes of the Doctor Strange character both in film and in comics, so it makes sense that a watch would play quite a big role. Alongside the eye-popping visuals and special effects, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual made for one of the most attractive things in that movie (to a watch nerd anyway).

I am quite certain that Cumberbatch chose to wear the Master Ultra Thin Perpetual to the Spider-Man: No Way Home film premiere as a callback to his first turn at the sorcerer. As an official Jaeger-LeCoultre ambassador since 2018, Cumberbatch surely has his pick of what JLC model to wear. However, he has been most recently wearing Polaris models in public – one of which I also spotted on his wrist during a cast interview on “Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel” on same day as the premiere: December 13, 2021.

Benedict Cumberbatch wearing the Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Memovox at the 2018 L.A. premiere of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ (photo courtesy Jaeger-LeCoultre/Getty Images)

As recently as July 2021, Jaeger-LeCoultre proudly announced, “Since Benedict Cumberbatch wore the Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Mariner Memovox for the making of the short film ‘In a Breath,’ it has become one of his favorite pieces.”

And since Stephen Strange no longer exists as such in the MCU, worldly possessions like a wristwatch no longer come into play on screen for his character. After all, he is the keeper of the Time Stone. So that leaves Cumberbatch with film premieres . . .

Cumberbatch’s next portrayal of this “Master of the Mystic Arts” is in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is due out in 2022. Can we please use the Time Stone to fast forward to that film’s opening?

For more on the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual, please visit www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/us/en/watches/master/master-ultra-thin-perpetual.

Quick Facts Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar
Case: 39 x 9.2 mm, stainless steel
Movement: automatic Caliber 868/1, 4 Hz/28,800 vph frequency, 38-hour power reserve, 336 components
Functions: hours, minutes seconds; perpetual calendar with day, date, month, four-digit year, moon phases; security zone indication (adjustment time warning display)
Price: $22,700

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