What Year Does FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Take Place? Director Matt Shakman Talks About MCU Timeline
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a tangled web of timelines, variants, and multiversal madness for nearly two decades now. With the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, things just got a little more puzzling.
Not only is the movie set in an alternate reality, Earth-828 rather than the primary Earth-616, but it’s also a full-blown period piece. So when exactly does it take place? Director Matt Shakman finally offered some answers.
During a recent chat with CinemaBlend, Shakman broke down the thought process behind the film’s unique setting. While watching Fantastic Four: First Steps, you may have noticed there was calendar or a date mentioned. Shakman said:
“In terms of the year, we are purposefully vague about it. But when we were organizing ourselves from a design standpoint, it was 1965. This was the year that we used for clothing, for cars, for New York in terms of referencing things.
“And that's really due to the fact that we wanted to be middle of the decade in terms of, you know, things start to change to get to more 70s as you get to the end of the 60s, and we didn't want it to feel too much vestigial 50s either. And so early 60s has that.”
So while the movie doesn’t explicitly state the year, all signs point to 1965. The style, fashion, cars, and overall retrofuturist vibe were all anchored in that mid-60s era. But that wasn’t the only thing shaping the aesthetic.
Shakman revealed that one major influence behind the look of Fantastic Four: First Steps was the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. Even though it’s not directly mentioned in the film, the event inspired the city’s retrofuturistic architecture and tech.
“So solidly in the middle, just kind of after the World's Fair in New York City. That was one of our touchstones, which was, ‘What if the World's Fair out in Queens was actually all over the city?’ You know, saucer shaped buildings, monorails, flying cars, all that idea.”
Now, with Avengers: Doomsday on the horizon and the Fantastic Four confirmed to be joining forces with the mainline heroes the question becomes: how do these 1965 heroes fit into the modern MCU?
Multiversal travel? Definitely. Time travel? Not so much.
Shakman shut down any theories about the team hopping through time to get to the present-day Marvel timeline. Their presence in Avengers: Doomsday will be thanks to the multiverse, not a DeLorean.