Preston Mutanga caught the eye of producers Chris Lord and Phil Miller in January after he posted his Lego remake of the “Across the Spider-Verse” trailer to Twitter. Among the tweet’s 836,000 viewers were Phil Lord and Chris Miller, two impressed producers who just happened to have directed the 2014 animated blockbuster “The Lego Movie.”
According to the New York Times, Mutanga re-created the trailer shot-for-shot using his dad’s old computers, but had been developing his animation skills for several years.
“My dad showed me this 3-D software called Blender and I instantly got hooked on it,” the Toronto native told the news outlet. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos to teach myself certain stuff.”
So when members of the production team decided they wanted a Lego sequence included in “Across the Spider-Verse,” they knew whom to call.
“We found out that it was a 14-year-old kid who made it and we were like, ‘This looks incredibly sophisticated for a non-adult, nonprofessional to have made,” Miller told the New York Times. “It blew us all away, including some of the best animators in the world.”
Mutanga’s parents vetted the producers who reached out to their son with an offer to contribute to the latest Sony Pictures “Spider-Man” film. Then, Mutanga’s father, Theodore, a medical physicist, built his son a new computer and bought him a professional-grade graphics card.
According to the New York Times, Mutanga worked to animate the sequence over spring break, on weekends and on school nights after he’d completed his homework. Mutanga checked in with Miller remotely every other week for feedback.
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has grossed $390 million globally in its first 12 days, already surpassing the run of its predecessor.
“In 2018, ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,’ Sony’s first movie to feature Miles Morales as the Marvel webslinger, introduced audiences to a visual approach that combined computerized animation with 2-D elements,” wrote the L.A. Times’ Ryan Faughnder. “This cocktail evoked the imagery and movement of classic comic book pages while also giving the movie a unique feel, along with its multiversal glitches.”
Mutanga’s future seems bright. The young animator’s YouTube channel is filled with moments from pop culture re-imagined with Legos, including a “Stranger Things” sequence when Max faces off with Vecna while the synthy 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush plays; a “Breaking Bad”-inspired exchange between Lego versions of Jesse Pinkman and Walter White; and even Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards.
Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is now playing in theaters.