With each year that passes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets a little bigger – a little more crowded and, by effect, a little more complicated.
Now at 18 films and counting – Black Panther included – Marvel’s superhero franchise is practically in a league of its own when it comes to sheer fandom, and one need only look to the excitement generated by Avengers: Infinity War for evidence of that.
Speaking of which, with little over six weeks until release, Joe and Anthony Russo’s blockbuster is occupying headlines left, right and center – word is the second and presumably final trailer will be with us before the week is out – and now, Black Widow actress Scarlett Johansson has confirmed where Infinity War fits into the MCU timeline.
When we last saw these characters in Civil War it’s been probably two or three years that have passed, and our characters have been kind of part of some sort of counter-terrorism unit efforts but we’re flying under the radar, and you know it’s a lot I think when you are on these kinds of missions with no governmental support. You don’t even have the support of just the general public, and you’re sort of running rogue, trying to do what you know is best for the common man but you don’t have someone to guide you or support you.
ScarJo continued:
We’re kind of fractured ourselves, and then, of course, the last we saw Hulk he was floating into the stratosphere. Now we are reintroduced to this whole expanded universe. There’s been a lot of change that’s gone on since the original Avengers assembled.
So, there you have it; in keeping with the natural time-gap between each film, Avengers: Infinity War will kick off around “two or three years” after the calamitous events of Captain America: Civil War, while Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther movie finds itself somewhere in between those two titans, chronologically speaking.