Eternals Place in MCU Timeline Revealed

Once upon a different timeline, Eternals was the first movie in Marvel’s slate of Phase 4 movies to be set after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Black Widow would hit theaters, then The Falcon and The Winter Soldier would release on Disney+, and then Eternals would go to the movies to advance the timeline on the big screen. Things have changed on the release schedule, several Disney+ shows from Marvel Studios have preceded Eternals, plus Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings went to theaters first. However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline for the story of Eternals remains unaffected. During a visit to the set of Eternals in January of 2020, ComicBook.com learned when Eternals is set in the MCU’s timeline.

“It could be concurrent [to Spider-Man: Far From Home],” Eternals producer Nate Moore explained. “Again, they sort of operate on a different system. Although, Far From Home does take place in London, ironically. So it’s sort of an undefined time. I don’t think it’s, years have not passed, I will say that.” Eternals will take place in several locations throughout history, including present day London in the MCU. Moore estimated that 60% of the film would be set in the present and 40% of its run time would be spent in various points in history.

“So it’s a big cosmic crazy movie set on earth over 7,000 years,” Moore said. “[The events of Avengers: Endgame] don’t directly affect [Eternals], although the Eternals are quite aware of what happened in the Endgame and what happened with Thanos, and you sort of get to hear their opinion about what happened and why maybe they didn’t get involved. So it is both in a post-Endgame world, but isn’t a direct line, as far as storytelling.”

Although many of the Avengers heroes are around in this timeline like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel, Moore says audiences shouldn’t expect to see them brought into the mix for Eternals as the film already boasts a roster of 10 heroes. “These characters have been around for all of the movies that we loved and know the characters that we know to some degree,” Moore explained. “So, there is a notion that it re-contextualize a couple of characters and how you view them. But again, it also is very self-contained to some degree.”

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