Hotel Transylvania

Hotel Transylvania is a 2012 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation. It was directed by Genndy Tartakovsky (in his directorial debut) from a screenplay by Peter Baynham and Robert Smigel and a story by Todd Durham, Dan Hageman, and Kevin Hageman, and stars the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, CeeLo Green, Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon and David Spade.

The film tells a story of Count Dracula, the owner of a hotel called Hotel Transylvania where the world's monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis (with a 18 year old aspect). When the "human-free hotel" is unexpectedly visited by an ordinary 21-year-old traveler named Jonathan, Dracula must protect Mavis from falling in love with him before the hotel's guests learn a human is in the castle, which may jeopardize the hotel's future and his career.

The film was released on September 28, 2012, by Sony Pictures Releasing, and was met with mixed critical reception, while the general public received it favorably, with many of them and some critics praising the colorful cartoony animation, humor and voice acting, while criticizing the predictable story and writing. It earned a total of $358 million worldwide, against a budget of $85 million, at the box office, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It launched a franchise with a sequel titled Hotel Transylvania 2, which takes place seven years after the first film, released in 2015, and a third film titled Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation released in 2018. A television series based on the film premiered on Disney Channel in June 2017, focusing on the teenage years of Mavis and her friends at the Hotel Transylvania. A fourth film is set to be released on December 21, 2021.

Plot
In 1895 in the aftermath of the death of his wife Martha (Jackie Sandler) at the hands of an angry human mob, Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) commissions and builds a massive five-star, monsters-only hotel in Transylvania, in which he raises his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and to serve as a safe-place getaway for the world's monsters from fear of human persecution. Famous monsters such as Frank (Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Wayne and Wanda Werewolf (Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon) and their massive immediate family, Griffin The Invisible Man (David Spade), and Murray the Mummy (CeeLo Green) often come to stay at the hotel.

In the present day on Mavis's 118th birthday, Dracula allows his daughter to leave the castle to explore the human world, but he sets up an elaborate plan using his zombie bellhops disguised as humans to make them seem intimidating, and frighten her home. The plan works, but the zombies inadvertently lead a 21-year-old human Jonathan Loughran (Andy Samberg) back to the hotel. Dracula frantically disguises him as a Frankensteinesque monster and passes him off as Frank's cousin "Johnnystein". Johnny soon encounters Mavis and the two "Zing". Unable to get Johnny out of the hotel without notice, Dracula quickly improvises that Johnny is a party planner, brought in to bring a fresher approach to his own traditional and boring parties. Johnny quickly becomes a hit to the other monsters, but this disgusts and worries Dracula greatly. Dracula orders Johnny to leave, but he is brought back by Mavis. After being shown the beauty of a sunrise by Johnny, Mavis is inspired to give humans another chance.

Meanwhile, the hotel chef Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz), with the help of his pet rat Esmeralda, learns that Johnny is a human and kidnaps him to cook him. Dracula intervenes and magically freezes Quasimodo to keep him from telling anyone that Johnny is human. Dracula leads Johnny to his quarters and shows him a painting of Martha, allowing Johnny to realize why Dracula built the hotel and became overprotective of Mavis. Johnny then agrees to leave for good, but Dracula convinces him to stay for the time being to avoid ruining Mavis's birthday.

The party is a great success the next night, and Mavis looks forward to opening a gift from Martha. However, when Johnny and Mavis share their first kiss, Dracula overreacts, and in his outburst, inadvertently confesses to deceiving Mavis with the town. A still-frozen Quasimodo bursts in and Mr. Fly (Chris Parnell) reveals from his frozen speech that Johnny is a human disguised by Dracula. The guests are outraged by the deceit at play, but Mavis is undeterred and wants to be with Johnny. Johnny feigns disinterest in Mavis and rejects her out of respect for her father and leaves the hotel.

Mavis flies onto the roof with her mother's present, and Dracula follows her in hopes of comforting her. He learns the present is a book about how Martha and Dracula "Zinged" and fell in love. Dracula realizes he no longer knows humankind's true tolerance of monsters. After apologizing to the patrons, Dracula convinces Frank, Wayne, Griffin, and Murray to head out into the human world to help him find Johnny, and with the scent-tracking ability of Wayne's daughter, Winnie, they learn that he is about to catch a flight to the United States.

The four head to the airport, but are held up in a town celebrating a Monster Festival along the way. Admiring the group, the humans agree to help, and a team of men dressed as vampires provides Dracula shelter from the sunlight while he rushes to the airport. Dracula arrives to see Johnny's plane taking off, and he gives chase in bat form, burning in the sunlight. After getting Johnny's attention, Dracula makes his way to the front of the plane and uses his mind-controlling power on the pilot (Brian Stack) to help him apologize, stating that Mavis has grown up and can make her own decisions. Jonathan accepts his apology, and Dracula manipulates the pilot to return to the Transylvanian airport.

Dracula returns Jonathan to Mavis, announcing that he approves of Johnny. Johnny confesses to Mavis that their "Zing" was mutual and the two kiss. The monsters finish celebrating Mavis's party, impressing the hotel guests.

Voice cast

 * Adam Sandler as Count Dracula: the 532-year-old owner and hotel manager of Hotel Transylvania, and Mavis' over-protective father.
 * Selena Gomez as Mavis: Dracula's 118-year-old "teenaged" vampire daughter who is interested in the outside world and falls in love with Johnny, but Dracula and he want to fight over her.
 * Sadie Sandler voices young Mavis as a child. Sadie also voices Winnie, Wayne's daughter.
 * Andy Samberg as Jonathan "Johnny" Loughran: a 21-year-old human who stumbles upon Hotel Transylvania in his travels.
 * Kevin James as Frankenstein: one of Dracula's best friends who acts as an uncle to Mavis and mostly hangs out with Murray.
 * Steve Buscemi as Wayne: a male werewolf who is also one of Dracula's best friends and Wanda's husband.
 * CeeLo Green as Murray: a short, fat mummy who is one of Dracula's best friends and mostly hangs out with Frankenstein.
 * Fran Drescher as Eunice: Frankenstein's wife and Wanda's best friend.
 * Molly Shannon as Wanda: a female werewolf, Wayne's heavily pregnant wife and Eunice's best friend.
 * David Spade as Griffin: an invisible man and one of Dracula's best friends.
 * Jon Lovitz as Quasimodo Wilson: a hunchbacked gourmet chef and the former bell-ringer of Notre Dame who desires to make a dish with human as the main ingredient.
 * Jim Wise and Luenell as the shrunken heads that serves as a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door of Mavis's room.
 * Chris Parnell as Mr. Fly: Hotel Transylvania's fitness coordinator who can also translate any speech.
 * Brian George as a Suit of Animated Armor, the head of Hotel Transylvania's security guards.
 * Brian Stack as the pilot of Jonathan's airplane back to America.
 * Jackie Sandler, as Martha: Dracula's wife and Mavis's mother who was killed by an angry mob when Mavis was young.
 * Rob Riggle as Skeleton Husband
 * Paul Brittain as Mr. Ghouligan: a zombie plumber.
 * Robert Smigel as
 * Fake Dracula: an attendee at a Transylvanian festival.
 * Marty: a pink Gill-man at Hotel Transylvania.
 * Jonny Solomon as Gremlin Man, one of the gremlins at Hotel Transylvania.
 * Craig Kellman as a man who shouts in the crowd at the festival.
 * Brian McCann as a hairy monster that resembles a Yeti.
 * James C. J. Williams as a deformed Igor-esque humanoid construction foreman who helped to build Hotel Transylvania.

The heads of the Hydra named Mr. Hydraberg are voiced by Jim Wise, Paul Brittain, Jonny Solomon, Craig Kellman, and Brian McCann.

Production
Hotel Transylvania was originally created and developed by comedy writer Todd Durham, which he based on his book of the same name; after creating the bible for a franchise of several films, television series, video games, books, merchandising, hotel chain, and theme park, he took the package unsolicited to Columbia Pictures and set it up at Sony Pictures Animation where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project.

The development process ultimately went through six directors; in 2006, Anthony Stacchi and David Feiss became the first directors set to helm the film. They were replaced by Jill Culton in 2008, who was followed by Chris Jenkins, with Todd Wilderman in 2010. In February 2011, Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack, took over as the sixth scheduled director, and made his feature directorial debut with the film. He reimagined the film to follow the energy, organic nature, and exaggeration of 2D animation, particularly as seen in the work of director Tex Avery. "I took all the aesthetics I like from 2-D and applied them here," Tartakovsky said. "I don't want to do animation to mimic reality. I want to push reality." "I wanted to have an imprint so you'd go, 'Well, only Genndy can make this.' It's hard, especially with CG, but I feel there's a lot of moments that feel that they're very me, so hopefully it'll feel different enough that it has a signature to it."

In November 2011, Miley Cyrus was announced to voice Mavis, Dracula's teenaged daughter, but in February 2012, she was removed from the film. In August 2019, Cyrus admitted it was because of buying then-partner Liam Hemsworth a cake shaped like a penis and licking it. It was later announced that Selena Gomez would replace Cyrus.

Release
Hotel Transylvania premiered on September 8, 2012, at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film received a wide release on September 28, 2012. On October 26, 2012, Regal Entertainment Group began exclusively playing the traditionally animated short film Goodnight Mr. Foot before the film. Based on Hotel Transylvania, the short was directed and animated by Genndy Tartakovsky.

Home media
Hotel Transylvania was released on Blu-ray (2D and 3D) and DVD on January 29, 2013. It was accompanied by the short animated film, Goodnight Mr. Foot.

Critical response
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 44% of critics gave the film positive reviews; the average rating is 5.35/10, based on 144 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "Hotel Transylvania ' s buoyant, giddy tone may please children, but it might be a little too loud and thinly-scripted for older audiences." Another review aggregate, Metacritic, calculated an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave Hotel Transylvania an average grade of A− on an A+ to F scale.

Box office
Hotel Transylvania earned $148.3 million in North America, and $210.1 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $358.4 million. The officially reported budget for the film was $85 million, although Deadline Hollywood claimed that the film actually cost $104 million. For the film's marketing, Sony spent $52.1 million in the United States, and $31 million in other countries.

Hotel Transylvania topped the box office with $11 million on its first Friday, and $42.5 million domestically and $50.6 million worldwide for its opening weekend, which at the time of its release broke the record for the largest-grossing September opening, a record which was overtaken by its sequel Hotel Transylvania 2 in 2015, with a weekend gross of $48.5 million. The film also earned the highest-grossing domestic debut for Sony Pictures Animation (also later overtaken by Hotel Transylvania 2). According to Sony's president of worldwide distribution, Rory Bruer, Sony was very satisfied with the film's performance, which was "beyond anyone's imagination, and the holds are ridiculous. It exceeds expectations in every new market it opens in." Hotel Transylvania was theatrically released in China on October 28, 2013, more than a year after the worldwide premiere, and contributed $11,180,000 to the overall gross.

Accolades
Coming soon!

Video games
A social game based on the film, titled Hotel Transylvania Social Game and made by Sony Pictures Interactive, was released on August 15, 2012. The game allows players to create their own Hotel Transylvania, where they must take care of the hotel's guests.

Another video game, titled Hotel Transylvania, developed by WayForward and published by GameMill Entertainment, was released on September 18, 2012, for Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS at retail. The game was also released in the Nintendo eShop in North America on November 15, 2012.

A mobile game, titled Hotel Transylvania Dash, developed by Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc. and PlayFirst, was released to iTunes App Store on September 20, 2012. The game is a variation of Hotel Dash mobile game and features the film's art and characters.

A mobile digital storybook app, titled Hotel Transylvania BooClips Deluxe App, developed by Castle Builders and Sony Pictures Animation, was released to iTunes App Store, Nook Store, Google Play for the Android, iBookstore, Microsoft's Metro, and for the PC and Mac via www.BooClips.com, both in English and in Spanish, on September 20, 2012.

Short film
Goodnight Mr. Foot is a traditionally animated short film based on Hotel Transylvania, featuring Bigfoot from the film. Premiering in time for Halloween, on October 26, 2012, the short was shown exclusively in Regal Entertainment Group Cinemas, before the theatrical shows of Hotel Transylvania. As Sony Pictures Animation's first traditionally animated film, it was written and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky himself, who also animated the short with the help of Rough Draft Studios. Animated in the style of Bob Clampett, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, Tartakovsky created the short in four weeks during the final production stages of the main film. Bigfoot was voiced by Corey Burton while the Witch Maid was voiced by Rose Abdoo. Both voice actors provided additional voices in Hotel Transylvania.

Taking place before the events of Hotel Transylvania, the short stars Bigfoot, whose rest in Hotel Transylvania is being constantly disturbed by an overly enthusiastic witch maid.

Sequels
A sequel, titled Hotel Transylvania 2, was released on September 25, 2015. Its story takes place seven years after the first film, with the hotel now open to human guests, and its owner, Count Dracula, being more preoccupied with the fact that his 5-year-old grandson is not a pure-blood vampire. The original crew and cast returned for the film, except CeeLo Green as the role of Murray, who was replaced by Keegan-Michael Key. New additions include Mel Brooks as Dracula's father, Vlad; Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally as Jonathan's parents, Mike and Linda; and Asher Blinkoff as Mavis and Johnny's half-human/half-vampire son, Dennis.

In November 2015, Sony Pictures Animation announced that Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation will be released on July 13, 2018. Despite previously leaving the series to direct other projects, Genndy Tartakovsky returned as director for this installment.

In 2017, Tartakovsky directed a five-minute length short film set between the events of Hotel Transylvania 2 and 3, called Puppy!, which was released in cinemas as a pre-show special in front of The Emoji Movie. The story surrounds the events of Dennis requesting a puppy dog from Dracula.

On February 26, 2019, Sony Pictures Animation announced that a fourth film will be released on December 22, 2021.

Television series
A television series based on the film premiered in June 2017, on Disney Channel. Developed and produced by Nelvana Limited, in partnership with Sony Pictures Animation, the series takes place before the first film, focusing on the teenage years of Mavis and her friends at the Hotel Transylvania.