The Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Lego scene was animated by a 14-year-old prodigy

Like its predecessor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse features young protagonists figuring out how to use their unique talents to make the world a better place. But it turns out a talented young person helped craft one of the most delightful sequences in the actual film.

After 14-year-old Preston Mutanga recreated the first trailer for Across the Spider-Verse with Legos, the film's team reached out to him to see if he was interested in working on the movie, according to a new story in The New York Times. Since they were already planning to include a scene made of Legos — a nod to writer-producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller's past work as directors of The Lego Movie — it was a perfect fit.

Sony Pictures Animation The Lego Spider-Man from 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'

Mutanga's supportive parents were skeptical at first, but after confirming that the offer was legitimate, his father built a new computer and bought a state-of-the-art graphics card so that his son could work on the project after finishing his homework on school nights.

"I know Preston has a gift that was given to him by God, and once we identified that he had that gift, all we could do as parents was to nurture it and let him fly," Preston's mother, Gisele Mutanga, told the Times, sounding not too different from the character Rio Morales (Luna Lauren Vélez) in Across the Spider-Verse.

Preston would have regular video meetings with Miller to go over his progress and get feedback. He said it was a helpful lesson about how much things change over the course of the creative process.

"The Lego Movie is inspired by people making films with Lego bricks at home," Lord told the Times. "That's what made us want to make the movie. Then the idea in Spider-Verse is that a hero can come from anywhere. And here comes this heroic young person who's inspired by the movie that was inspired by people like him."

Read the full story over at The New York Times, and catch Across the Spider-Verse in theaters now.

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