A Canadian teen made that Lego scene in the new Spider-Verse film from his bedroom

Preston Mutanganever expected to go viral,let alone have a hand in creating one of this year'smostsuccessfulmovies.

The 14-year-old in Milton, Ont., was tappedto animate a scene inSpider-Man: Across The Spider-Verseafter his shot-by-shot recreation of the originaltrailer stylized so that the characters look like Lego racked up hundreds of thousands of views online.

Mutanga posted his work on YouTube and Twitter, where it quickly drew the attention of filmmaking team Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. The animation duo producedAcross The Spider-Verseand directed 2014'sThe Lego Movie.

"I'm really, really inspired by how you can pretty much just do anything in animation," Mutangasaid in an interview with CBC News. "Your imagination is the limit."

After his father, a physicist, introduced him to a 3D computer graphics software called Blender, Mutanga did some research and discovered that it could be used for film production and animation. He wanted to test it out himself.

"I got the idea to make it in Lego because Lego's popular, Spider-Man's popular, and I love both of them. So why not combine the two?"

WATCH | The redesigned movie trailer that caught Miller and Lord's attention:

Across The Spider-Verseis a sequel to2018's Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,which was lauded for seamlessly blending a range of animation styles and injecting new lifeblood into the Spider-Man franchise by introducing a new protagonist, Miles Morales.

Mutanga himself was a fan of that first Spider-Versemovie, which he called "an artistic explosion." It's set in a multiverse, where multiple versions of the superhero(including Spider-Pig, Spider-Punk and, yes, Lego Spider-Man)can exist at a time.

The scene Sony paid him to design for the sequel, also in the Lego animation style, is a colourful moment partly inspired by the original 2002Spider-Manmovie starring Tobey Maguire.

It's set at The Daily Bugle, the New York City newspaper where Peter Parker freelances as a photojournalist. Spider-ManactorJ.K. Simmons even makes a voice cameo during the scene, reprising his role asBugleeditor-in-chiefJ. Jonah Jameson from the original franchise.

"The first Spider-Versewas one of my favourite movies ever," Mutanga said. "So getting to actually work on it was just a dream come true."

'There's so much work that goes into movies'

During an initial Zoom call,Miller and Lord showed Mutangastoryboards that outlined their vision of what the scene should look like. He used those materials to design the sequence, meeting every few weeks with the filmmakers to get their feedback.

The timeline was tight. Mutanga's trailer went viral in January, the movie was released in June, and for three months in between, the high schooler rolled up his sleeves, typically working on the scene during his free time after school.

After designing manydifferent iterations, the final scene looked completely different from what he'd imagined.

"There's a lot of planning involved with filmmaking," he said. "There's so much work that goes into movies that average, everyday viewers don't really realize."

Mutanga finally got to see his creation in a movie theatre at the Los Angeles red carpet premiere of Across The Spider-Verse in May, which he attended with his family, including his parents Theodore and Gisele.

"It was honestly a surreal experience. It felt like a fever dream," the teen said. "Meeting the people that Ilooked up to for so long in my life was just a dream come true let alone seeing my work onthe big screen.

"That's what really just lit me up, made me super happy."

The next instalment in theSpider-Versefranchise is slated for a March 2024 release.Mutanga doesn't yet know if he'll work withMiller and Lord again "it would be really cool" if he did but he dreams of working as a director and animator in film and television.

"I wanna tell my own stories and spread them to the world."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check outBeing Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of.You can read more stories here.