‘Avengers: Infinity War’ ‘Arrested Development’ Easter Egg Revealed

Avengers: Infinity War is officially out in theaters — and it dropped a pretty amazing Easter egg to one of the directors’ past projects along the way.

Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War below!

In one sequence of the film, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and her fellow Guardians of the Galaxy visited The Collector’s (Benecio del Toro) headquarters. For eagle-eyed fans, a particular inhabitant of The Collector’s tubes was probably noteworthy, as it contained a blue-hued man dressed in short shorts and glasses – one who very clearly resembles Arrested Development‘s Tobias Funke (David Cross).

If you’re unfamiliar with Tobias and his blue exterior, you’re missing out. In the season two episode “The One Where Michael Leaves”, Tobas develops a penchant for the Blue Man Group, and is attempted to join their ranks as an understudy. He paints his entire head and torso blue, creating the homophone-filled joke “I just blue myself.”

Fans first thought they spotted the Easter egg in the Infinity War leaked footage last November, and were eager to see if it would be easy to see in one of the film’s official trailers. While that wasn’t the case, it looks like the end result did actually make it into the finished film.

It was pretty easy to assume that it would, though, considering the ties that Infinity War directors Joe and Anthony Russo have to Arrested Development. The duo directed ten episodes of Arrested Development‘s first run, and have been known to have quite a love for combining the franchises. After all, the Russos snuck Arrested Development‘s iconic stair car into Captain America: Civil War‘s airport fight scene.

Going into Infinity War, the Russos did tease that another Arrested Development Easter egg would be in the film, and that fans would just have to look out for it.

“There are few surprises coming, I would say that Arrested Development fans should keep their eyes open with this one.” Joe Russo said during a recent interview. “Keep your eyes open; you gotta look.”

And as it turns out, the beloved comedy actually had an influence in how Infinity War came together, aside from this obvious visual cue.

“We’ve always had a creative process throughout our careers where we like to combine things that don’t seem like they belong together and see what you get.” Anthony Russo explained earlier this month. “We describe it as like a mad scientist process. If you go back to something like Arrested Development, an example of this would be that you take a completely absurdist story and you shoot it in the most grounded, realistic way you can possibly present a narrative. The incongruity of those two things gives you something that feels fun and weird and interesting. We’ve applied that same process to combining all these different tones, all these different characters.”

“It’s really just a process of us thinking about how you smash those things together.” Anthony Russo continued. “The way we end up balancing it is that we always try to ground it in an emotional truth for the character. That becomes our guidepost. If something doesn’t feel emotionally true or emotionally real for a character, then we can’t follow that storyline. We have to always use that as our guidepost through the narrative, and that’s how we hold everything together ultimately.”

What did you think of Infinity War‘s Arrested Development homage? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters now.