When Does the Film "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (2009) Take Place?
"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (sometimes released as "X-Men: Zero") is a superhero film written by David Benioff with Skip Woods, Hugh Jackman, David Ayer, James Vanderbilt, and Scott Silver [adapting "Origin" #2 (2001) by Paul Jenkins with Joe Quesada as well as the "Weapon X" story in "Marvel Comics Presents" #73-74 (1991) by Barry Windsor-Smith] and released in a public theater April 9th, 2009. (Wide release was April 29th, 2009.)
It takes place on an alternate timeline of the fictional Marvel Cinematic Universe in the year:
We know this because the climax of the movie takes place in a nuclear reactor explicitly stated by Gambit to be on Three Mile Island and the fight there destroying the facility is implied to be the 'actual story' behind the real-world partial meltdown that occurred there on March 28th, 1979 AD. (In the real world, there was no visible physical damage to the reactor or buildings.)
1979 AD
We know this because the climax of the movie takes place in a nuclear reactor explicitly stated by Gambit to be on Three Mile Island and the fight there destroying the facility is implied to be the 'actual story' behind the real-world partial meltdown that occurred there on March 28th, 1979 AD. (In the real world, there was no visible physical damage to the reactor or buildings.)
Additionally, there is a massive multi-part prologue that literally covers more than 100 years.
The first is clearly labeled by a time and place setting title card over the very first shot of the film that reads "Northwest Territories, Canada, 1845" so we know this opening sequence is set in 1845 AD.
The second takes the viewer into the famous and tragic American Civil War. The presence on an unnamed battlefield of the Confederate States of America's flag (the recognizable 'Battle Flag' that later became the official national flag of the rebels) only flown from 1861 AD to 1865 AD makes this conclusive. More specificity than that seems impossible.
The third brings us to World War I, recognizable by the wide trenches dug to protect soldiers from the recently invented automatic machine guns. It must therefore be sometime between 1914 AD and 1918 AD.
The fourth one adds in World War II, very likely on D-Day itself. That would make this scene June 6th, 1944 AD.
The final one clearly starts amid the American War in Vietnam, based on the helicopter the characters use at first and the jungle setting. This places the scene sometime between 1964 AD and the final prologue in 1973 AD.
Whether the last part of the prologue in Lagos, Nigeria happens immediately after the previous scenes are tricky to determine but we do know it is 1973 AD. At the end of the final prologue, there's a time and place setting title card reading "Canadian Rockies, Six Years Later" so this final piece must be 6 years previous to the main action of the story.
1979 - 6 = 1973.
It is a chronologically early film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline (the first chronological film to feature Logan/Wolverine) and can be watched either at its timeline point or entirely separately.
