As great as it would be for us to get yearly instalments of every Marvel Studios franchise, that's just not possible, hence why there are often two to three years between each release (Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 are the first movies to be shot back to back). As a result, the timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a tad confusing. When did it start and what year is it supposed to be?
Have The Avengers been together since 2012 or just a year or two by the time the events of Captain America: Civil War took place? If Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place eight years after the events of The Avengers, does that mean it took place in 2020 as opposed to 2017? Well, answers are on the way!
During a recent interview, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige promised that they know what they're doing when it comes to the timeline and that an official version will be released at some point.
"All of that debate has encouraged us. We are going to be publishing an official, and I’m not sure when, or in what format, an official timeline. It’ll probably be apart of ah, I don’t know, apart of an in print that you can fold out and look at. But suffice to say, only in limited cases do we ever actually say what the actual years are because we never want to be tied down to a particular year and I think people assume that whenever the movie is released is when is when the movie is taking place, and that is not the case."
That's a fair point and it will be interesting to see whether this timeline is something Marvel chooses to release online or a book of some sort breaking down every MCU adventure to date. The end of Phase 3 would be a good time to have that hit stores but we're obviously going to have to just wait and see.