There’s apparently an Easter egg in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy that’s so well-hidden that Marvel fans haven’t spotted it, though it’s not for lack of trying. It seems like every week, now, a fan comes to director James Gunn thinking they’ve found the fabled Easter egg he says is lurking in the movie, only for Gunn to shoot them down. The latest red herring is a familiar sight to Disney-owned Marvel but, no, Mickey Mouse is not the Easter egg.
On Tuesday afternoon, Twitter user @ViktorBravo1 tweeted at Gunn, asking if he’d found the Easter egg. Attached was a picture from the part of the movie where Benicio del Toro’s Collector character gets knocked on his ass after the Power Stone destroys his lair. On one bit of the rubble he’s lying on, @ViktorBravo1 drew a red ring around a trio of circles which look suspiciously like Mickey Mouse, Disney’s mascot.
It’s an impressive spot, but Gunn responded within a half hour to say that not only was it not the Easter egg, it wasn’t even intentional. “That’s what’s known in the Easter egg business as an ‘Accidental Mickey,’” he wrote, apparently revealing that Mickey’s three-circle silhouette pops up all over the place by accident, since it’s not that complicated or rare a design. “And it’s not the only one in the film,” he continued.
The fabled Guardians Easter egg, whatever it actually is, has been tormenting Marvel die-hards for years. Two years ago, Gunn (jokingly) offered a $100,000 reward to the fan who could find it, but nobody has been able to collect. Last week, another fan thought they’d found the missing Easter egg when they realized that some alien text in Stan Lee’s cameo translated to “Excelsior,” his catchphrase, but Gunn said that wasn’t it either..
It would appear that Guardians of the Galaxy’s missing Easter egg is even more elusive than the Soul Stone, though that may change come Avengers: Infinity War, which opens on April 27.
