Joe and Anthony Russo took an unconventional path toward their current roles as Marvel Studios’ directorial kingpins. They didn’t make their bones doing action movies — prior to doing Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they were best known for television comedy. One of their achievements in that realm was collectively directing more than a dozen episodes of Arrested Development. They haven’t forgotten their roots: In this month’s mega-hit Captain America: Civil War, they appear to have snuck in a reference to the ever-troubled Bluth family.
Eagle-eyed viewer Janel Drewis noticed that the big battle scene set in Leipzig/Halle Airport featured a familiar vehicle in its mise en scène:
Sure enough, upon closer viewing, that does appear to be the Bluth family’s stair-car, albeit without the Bluth logo:
Presumably, the next installment of the Avengers franchise will feature Thanos using the Infinity Gauntlet to blow up the model home.
Thank you to Brian Feldman for his additional reporting on this post.