Last year, 14-year-old Preston Mutanga from Ontario, Canada, saw the trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. This inspired Preston to animate his own Lego version of the video. He posted the fan-made trailer online. It quickly caught the attention of people at Sony, the company that creates the Spider-Verse movies. Producers reached out to Preston and asked him to create a Lego-inspired sequence that would appear in the film! “It took me a minute to process that a sequence I made was actually going to be a part of the real movie,” says Preston.
Over the next three months, Preston spent his spring break, weekends, and school nights working on the animation. He used a program to produce 3-D computer-generated (CG) graphics.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hit theaters this past June. Early in the movie, you’ll catch Preston’s 30-second scene. “I was invited to the premiere, so I got to see my part on the big screen,” he says. “I loved seeing the audience reaction to my scene. It was just really heartwarming.”