The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay says there's a giant Easter egg for fans of The Dark Knight that serves as the setting in the animated blockbuster. Without question, The LEGO Movie kicked off an exciting new era of moviemaking in 2014 by giving the computer-generated animation of the film a definitive stop-motion look. Featuring funny original characters like Emmet Brickowski (voice of Chris Pratt) and Bad Cop/Good Cop (voice of Liam Neeson), the film also ingeniously infused several LEGO versions of characters from the Star Wars saga and DC Universe, including an uproarious turn by Batman.

Expertly voiced by Will Arnett, Batman was so enormously popular, that Warner Bros. proceeded to give the character his own big screen adventure with The LEGO Batman Movie, with Robot Chicken stop-motion animator/editor and The LEGO Movie editor/co-animator director McKay at the helm.

As a fan of the DC icon going into the gig, McKay wanted to make sure to properly pay homage to the Batman films that preceded his – and on Twitter, the director explained one tribute appears in the form of an Easter egg that's hard to miss. See McKay's tweet below.

While Easter eggs hidden by filmmakers are always a blast to look for, it's even more entertaining when one like the Nolan/Chicago-inspired Gotham City in The LEGO Batman Movie is hidden in plain sight. And as if fans needed a reason already to watch The LEGO Batman Movie again (it's new on digital, and coming out on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra-HD June 13), McKay's revelation about The Dark Knight Easter egg will provide for a fascinating study. Since production designers, whether they're working on live-action or animation, often put a great amount of work into the detail of their set pieces, it will be interesting to compare the looks of Gotham City in both The LEGO Batman Movie and The Dark Knight to see how closely the settings resemble one-another.

The great thing is, McKay's homages to Batman on film didn't begin and end with his tribute to the second film in Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. In addition to the noticeable homages to Tim Burton's Batman films in The LEGO Batman Movie, McKay revealed in another tweet Saturday that the big statues in the film are a tribute to director Joel Schumacher's Batman films. Learning more about McKay's inspirations will make The LEGO Batman Movie that much more of a joy to watch on video, but before you press play, there are more homages to celebrate the digital release of the film – including, some awesome LEGO-ized posters that recreate movie posters from Batman films by Burton, Schumacher and Zack Snyder.

Next: The LEGO Batman Movie Easter Eggs & References

Source: Chris McKay