How an art director for Disney turned Keanu Reeves into an incredible movie Easter egg

A movie-obsessed Reddit user uncovered an Easter egg in "Zootopia" that combines the popular "Sad Keanu" meme with one of "The Matrix" stars' first stage roles in the early 1980s. A movie-obsessed Reddit user uncovered an Easter egg in "Zootopia" that combines the popular "Sad Keanu" meme with one of "The Matrix" stars' first stage roles in the early 1980s. Photo: Zootopia/Disney Photo: Zootopia/Disney Image 1 of / 32 Caption Close How an art director for Disney turned Keanu Reeves into an incredible movie Easter egg 1 / 32 Back to Gallery

Sometimes a movie Easter egg is so well hidden and perfectly paired that when it's found, the film world collectively gasps in awe.

This was the case Friday when Reddit user Hdalby33 uncovered a reference to the popular meme "Sad Keanu" hidden in the Academy Award winning film "Zootopia." The meme started sometime after May 2010 when Splash News photographer Ron Asadorian captured Reeves sitting on a park bench eating a sandwich alone. You may want to stop reading now if you haven't seen the film.

Around the 84-minute mark in "Zootopia," Officer Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde can be seen hiding in a laboratory while Doug develops a drug made from night howlers.

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The camera pans to a map on the wall in the lab featuring animals Doug had targeted. One of the photos is of Reeves as a wolf sitting on a bench holding a sandwich.

As one Reddit user pointed out, and was later confirmed by Disney art director and designer Matthias Lechner, the Easter egg went beyond "Sad Keanu."

The "Sad Keanu"-inspired photo also referenced Reeves' first stage role in 1984's "Wolfboy." The "macabre werewolf musical" was produced by playwright Brad Fraser, according to the book "Celebrity Biographies - The Amazing Life Of Keanu Reeves - Famous Actors."

"Great ideas and Easter eggs are always welcome in our movies," Lechner told Chron.com over email.

The Easter egg discovered by Hdalby33 has become one of the most popular posts on Reddit's r/moviedetails, where it collected more than 50,000 upvotes.

"I had forgotten about it at this point, so it's cool that people have just discovered it. While we are working on it we try to pack as many little details to discover into the sets as we can. I always want the audience to leave the film with the feeling that there is a lot more to discover than you can see in one sitting," Lechner said.

Fernando Alfonso III is a digital reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @fernalfonso.