Hotel Transylvania is a 2012 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, and Sym-Bionic Titan, and produced by Michelle Murdocca. The film features the voices of Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Jon Lovitz, Cee Lo Green, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, and David Spade. The film tells a story of Dracula, the owner of Hotel Transylvania, where the world's monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters, including Frankenstein's monster, Mummy, a Werewolf family, and the Invisible Man, to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter, Mavis. When the hotel is unexpectedly visited by an ordinary young traveler named Jonathan, Dracula must protect Mavis from falling in love with him before it is too late.
Released on September 28, 2012, the film was met with mixed critical reception, while the audience received it very favourably. Despite mixed reviews, Hotel Transylvania set a new record for the highest-grossing September opening weekend, and earned a total of $51.1 million on a budget of $85 million.
Plot
| Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film. |
Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) is the owner and creator of Hotel Transylvania, a five-star resort where the world's monsters can be safe from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters like Frankenstein's Monster (Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Murray the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), Wayne and Wanda Werewolf (Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Bigfoot, The Blob, and other monsters to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez). However, Mavis prefers to explore the outside world with her father's permission, but the village he directs her to is actually an elaborate deception to convince her of the threat of humans enough to coax her back.
However, this charade inadvertently attracts the attention of an ordinary young traveler named Jonathan (voiced by Andy Samberg) who was exploring the surrounding forest and he follows the staff to the hotel. Once Jonathan enters the hotel, Dracula frantically attempts to hide him from the patrons such as disguising him as a Flesh Golem named Johhny-stein with the later hasty cover story of being a relative of one of Frank's body parts. Then, Jonathan is discovered by Mavis and company, forcing Dracula to claim he is going to arrange Mavis' birthday party with a young perspective. In doing so, Jonathan manages to liven up the staid activities at the hotel, charming everyone, especially Mavis. Eventually, even Dracula begins to like the human, taking him into his confidence about his family's traumatic past after the vampire notices the young man knows something about them in a respectful manner.
Unfortunately, Chef Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz) realizes Jonathan is human and captures him to cook him, forcing Dracula to directly intervene by magically paralyzing the chef. Eventually, the birthday party happens and it is a raucous success until Dracula overreacts to Mavis and Jonathan's innocent kiss. Things get worse when Chef Quasimodo interrupts the party and reveals Jonathan's true nature. Even as the clientele are revolted, Dracula, in his ranting, lets it slip that he tricked Mavis at the fake village and Mavis is outraged at being manipulated by her own father but still accepts and expresses her desire to be with Jonathan even though he is human. For his part, Jonathan feels obliged to reject Mavis for her father's sake and leaves the hotel. Afterward, Dracula realizes that in his efforts to protect Mavis, he has broken her heart and now she tearfully wants to stay at the hotel forever.
Wishing to undo his mistake, Dracula persuades his friends to help him find Jonathan and even risks his destruction by venturing out in the daylight to do so. Learning that Jonathan is about to board a flight out of Transylvania Airport shortly, they race on and enter a town en route. At that town, Dracula and company are stunned to see the humans celebrating a monster holiday with many humans costumed as the monsters in tribute. To clear a path, Frankenstein tries to scare them, but finds the humans are cheerfully welcoming them instead and even provide a shaded route through the town for Dracula to proceed at maximum speed.
However, Dracula finds that he is too late with Jonathan's plane taking off. With no alternative, Dracula sadly flies after it in broad daylight despite being hurt by the sun. With much effort, Dracula manages to reach the plane and resorts to mind-controlling one of the pilots (Brian Stack) to apologize and tell Jonathan that he wants him to return to be with his daughter. Jonathan accepts Dracula's apology and Dracula manipulates the plane back to the airport. Later, Dracula returns Jonathan to Mavis, who apologizes and explains why he had to reject her and that she is his 'zing'. Dracula gives his blessing to their relationship, Jonathan and Mavis kiss and the hotel has another party to celebrate his daughter's liberating coming of age before Jonathan and Mavis set off on their travels.
The film ends with Dracula and his friends being shown in Traditional animation during the credits.
| Spoiler Warning: All spoilers have been stated and have ended here. |
Monster Cameos
Besides the principal monster characters, the following monsters appeared in this film:
- Witches - They work as maids at Hotel Transylvania
- Zombies - They work as bellhops.
- Headless Coachman
- Mr. Hyde
- Multiple Gill-men and Gill-women
- Horned Yeti
- Cyclops
- Gargoyles
- Gremlins
- Bigfoot
- The Blob
- Dia de los Muertos Skeletons
- Multiple Brains from Planet Arous
- The giant Tarantula
- Multiple girl Mummies
Cast
- Adam Sandler as Dracula, the Hotel Transylvania owner, and Mavis' over-protective father.
- Selena Gomez as Mavis, Dracula's 118 year old "teenage" daughter.
- Andy Samberg as Jonathan/Jonny/Jonny-stein, a 21-year-old regular guy who stumbled onto Hotel Transylvania.
- Kevin James as Frank/Frankenstein the lovable, fire-hating uncle of Mavis.
- Cee Lo Green as Murray, an obese mummy.
- Steve Buscemi as Wayne, a werewolf.
- Molly Shannon as Wanda, a werewolf and Wayne's pregnant wife.
- David Spade as Griffin the Invisible Man
- Fran Drescher as Eunice, Frankenstein's wife
- Jon Lovitz as Quasimodo, the former Hunchback of Notre-Dame who now works as a gourmet chef. He is always accompanied by his pet rat Esmeralda.
- Chris Parnell as Fly.
- Brian George as Suit of Armor, a living suit of armor that works as Dracula's messenger.
- Brian Stack as Pilot.
- Jackie Sandler as Martha, Dracula's wife and Mavis' mother.
- Sadie Sandler as Young Mavis, Winnie.
- Rob Riggle as Skeleton Husband.
- Paul Brittain as Zombie.
- Robert Smigel as Fake Dracula, Marty.
- Jonny Solomon as Gremlin Man.
- Brian McCann as Hairy Monster.
- Shrunken Head voices by Luenell and Jim Wise
- Hydra heads voiced by Paul Brittain, Craig Kellman, Brian McCann, Jonny Solomon, Tom Kenny, and Jim Wise.
Production
Hotel Transylvania has been in development since 2006, when Anthony Stacchi and David Feiss were set to direct the film. In 2008, Jill Culton took over the directing position, and around 2010, Chris Jenkins, followed by Todd Wilderman. In 2011, Genndy Tartakovsky had joined Sony as the sixth director to direct his feature directorial debut.
In less than a year, Tartakovsky rewrote the script and reimagined the film to follow the energy, organic-ness and exaggeration of the 2D animation, particularly of the Tex Avery's cartoons. 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."
Trailers
Development
The film has been in the works since 2006, back when Anthony Stacchi and David Feiss were set to direct the film. However, in 2008, Jill Culton took over as director, and then around 2010, Chris Jenkins took the helm. Currently, the director attached to the feature is Genndy Tartakovsky.
Trivia
Miley Cyrus was originally tapped to voice Mavis, Dracula's teenage daughter, but in February 2012, Cyrus left the film to focus on other projects. It was later announced Selena Gomez would replace Cyrus.