If You Want To Find Haunted Mansion’s Deepest Easter Egg, Look To The Paintings [Exclusive]

For any filmmaker coming aboard to make a film with Disney, there are limitless possibilities and opportunities to dig into the history and lore of the company. Whether you’re exploring the vast canon of “Star Wars” canon at Lucasfilm or the nearly 70-year lineage of Disneyland and Disney World, there’s a rich tapestry of stories and imagery to tap into. With “Haunted Mansion,” Simien loved diving into the research side of the process. When asked where Easter egg hunters should be looking, Simien offered us a significant clue for where the most obscure or interesting references might be found:

“I would say, look at the paintings. Because some of them, we pull your eyes to the paintings that change and sometimes we don’t pull your eyes to the paintings that change. And literally everything that moves in this movie is based upon some deep-cut knowledge and research [laughs].”

Originally hailing from New Orleans, Simien was able to bring in his cousin Jeremy, an art historian based in The Big Easy, to help with the staggering amount of research he and his team embarked on.

If I were to guess, there’s one portrait in particular to keep an eye on in “Haunted Mansion.” As glimpsed in the trailer, actor LaKeith Stanfield saunters down a hallway where a portrait keeps changing every time he passes it. It’s a clear reference to one of the actual portraits featured on the ride showing a skeleton, a ghost ship, and a young woman transforming into Medusa. The art gallery displayed in the infamous haunted stretching room should also offer up a ton of clues and will most likely be a key sequence early on.