The Marvel universe is one of the most beloved in the world, offering in-depth, complex and fascinating cinematic experiences for pretty much any age.
To say the studio had done an astounding job of building out their fictional world would be a massive understatement. What they have created is nothing short of mind-blowing.
Since film production started back in 2007, Marvel has produced 20 films already, with another 11 making some kind of progress.
The links between each film are something that leads to endless debate between fans, which is just one of the factors that make the franchise so special.
After fans were left perplexed by the claim that Spider-Man: Homecoming was set eight years after Avengers, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige promised that we would get an official MCU timeline to clear up any confusion. Well now he has delivered.
The new Marvel Studios: The First 10 Years book contains the timeline – solely for the movies, not the TV shows. First of all, it confirms that Homecoming was actually set only four years after the first Avengers movie, moving Iron Man a couple of years later to 2010.
People have already raised issues with the timeline, though here it is in black and white:
- 1943-1945: Captain America: The First Avenger
- 2010: Iron Man
- 2011: Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor
- 2012: Avengers, Iron Man 3
- 2013: Thor: The Dark World
- 2014: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
- 2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man
- 2016: Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming
- 2016 through to 2017: Doctor Strange
- 2017: Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War
One notable omission from the list is Ant-Man and The Wasp, though given its mid-credit scene, we know it takes place at the same time as Infinity War in 2017.
Marvel fans were hit with good news and some bad news recently. The bad news? It’s looking increasingly unlikely that the first Avengers 4 trailer would be with us before 2019 – although we were led to believe otherwise.
The good news? The movie is looking to be the longest Marvel creation to date.
“The running time on Avengers 4 is currently sitting right at three hours, so we’ll see if that holds,” said Joe Russo. “But it’s sitting right at three hours right now.”
It comes as no surprise, Chris Hemsworth has spoke about how the next release will eclipse anything that’s gone before in terms of shock factor.
“If you were shocked by [Infinity War], I think the second one is even more shocking, for other reasons entirely. That’s what kind of blew me away the first time I read both scripts, is how they managed to orchestrate so many different characters but give them each their own separate shot and moments, and have it be elevated and feel fresh and unique—not just like a messy, thrown-together assembly of these guys.
The second one I’m probably even more excited about. Just for people to see. I just think it’s another step again. Each step we seem to take with these films, I’ve loved the fact that there’s been growth and evolution and it continues to surprise people as opposed to sort of flatlining, which was obviously always a fear—that they’d run out of ideas or run dry of creative excitement. For me, this whole experience has been incredible. In particular the last one.”
I guess all we can do now is speculate on some kind of plot for the upcoming movie and get lost in insane fan theories…
Words by Brad Lengden.