Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is a 2018 American animated monster comedy film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and written by Tartakovsky and Michael McCullers. Produced by Sony Pictures Animation, it is the third film in the Hotel Transylvania franchise. Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher, and Mel Brooks reprise their roles from previous installments, with Kathryn Hahn and Jim Gaffigan joining the cast. In the film, Dracula finds love with a ship captain named Ericka while on a vacation on a luxury cruise liner with his family and friends, but it is revealed that she is actually the great-granddaughter of his arch-nemesis, Abraham Van Helsing.
The film was announced in November 2015. Tartakovsky confirmed his return in June 2016 after receiving inspiration from a "miserable" family vacation and the Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Vacation movies. The title was revealed in November 2017.
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 13, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 13. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $528 million against a budget of $65–80 million, making it the highest-grossing film in the series. A further sequel, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, was released in 2022, while a spin-off series, Motel Transylvania, is scheduled to premiere on Netflix in 2027.
Plot
In 1897, Dracula and his friends travel in disguise on a train to Budapest, the capital of the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary. However, Drac's arch-nemesis Professor Abraham Van Helsing boards the train and unveils the monsters; the monsters escape by climbing through the roof, and Drac pushes his friends off the train for their safety. Van Helsing becomes obsessed with destroying Drac but is constantly outsmarted by him.In the present day, one year after the second film, Drac is running his hotel business smoothly with Mavis and Johnny. Drac is depressed that he has remained single since his wife Martha's death despite his attempts to meet someone. Misinterpreting this as stress from overwork, Mavis books a cruise so they can all take a break and spend more time together as a family. Drac, Johnny, Mavis, Dennis, Vlad, and the hotel guests board a cruise ship called Legacy. Drac sees the ship's captain, Ericka, and falls in love with her at first sight, something that he thought was impossible as he had already "zinged" before.
Ericka afterwards goes to a private and secret room on the lower decks where she meets up with Abraham van Helsing, secretly her great-grandfather. Van Helsing has almost entirely mechanized his body to avoid death and has a plan to eliminate all the monsters: on the cruise's arrival at the lost city of Atlantis, he will use an Instrument of Destruction in Atlantis' ruins. Van Helsing makes Ericka promise to not assassinate Drac beforehand, but she makes repeated unsuccessful attempts to do so anyway. Drac's friends hear Ericka complain about her inability to get him and misinterpret this as a sign of affection. Drac nervously asks Ericka out on a date, and she accepts since she sees this as another opportunity to kill him. As they dine on a deserted island, Ericka unexpectedly begins to fall in love with Drac, after they learn about each other's pasts where they lost their loved ones - for Drac, it was his beloved Martha and for Ericka, it was her parents.
Mavis discovers her father is interested in Ericka and becomes suspicious of Ericka's motives. The cruise ship reaches Atlantis, which has been converted into a casino. Drac decides to tell Mavis the truth about Ericka but gets distracted seeing Ericka enter an underground crypt. Drac follows her, with Mavis not far behind, and learns that Ericka is after a "family heirloom". With Drac's help, she evades the booby traps around the object and escapes. Mavis arrives and confronts them, and Drac confesses that he "zinged" with Ericka, to Mavis's surprise and confusion. After Ericka is told what a "zing" is, her inner guilt about lying to Drac forces her to reject his feelings for her, leaving Drac heartbroken and Mavis feeling guilty.
A regretful Ericka gives van Helsing the heirloom, and he sets a trap for the monsters at a dance party. Noticing that Drac is still depressed about Ericka, Mavis takes advice from Johnny and tells her father to talk to Ericka, admitting that she was afraid of him leaving her, which allays Drac's fears. Van Helsing shows up and pushes away the DJ and a saddened Ericka is forced to reveal that she is his great-granddaughter. Van Helsing reveals that the heirloom is the Instrument of Destruction—a case for a music note sheet—and plays a song that drives a friendly Kraken living near the island to attack the monsters. Drac tries to stop the evil Kraken but gets injured. Ericka saves Drac from the evil Kraken and pleads with her great-grandfather to stop the destruction, confessing her love for Drac. This infuriates Van Helsing, and he attacks them both.
To pacify the evil Kraken, Johnny opens up a portable DJ kit and plays positive songs to beat van Helsing's song. Upon playing the "Macarena", the Kraken is relaxed and happy for good. Van Helsing is unable to counter the song as the humans and monsters begins to dance, including the music sheet, which rips itself to pieces during the process. When van Helsing also dances, he accidentally slips and falls, but Drac saves him. Touched by the act of kindness, van Helsing apologizes to the monsters and gives everybody a full refund for the cruise, before sending them back.
Back at the hotel, Drac proposes to Ericka, who gets tongue-tied at the question before accepting.
Voice cast
Additionally, Tartakovsky, Whyte, Strong, and Teigen also reprised their roles in the French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish, and Romanian language dubs of the movie.Production
Development
In September 2015, Michelle Murdocca, the film's producer, said before the second film's release that the studio was "talking about number 3 and moving forward and taking the franchise to the next level," but thought that she and director Genndy Tartakovsky would not return, since they were working on Tartakovsky's Can You Imagine? before that project was later shelved. That same month, Tartakovsky stated that he will not return for the sequel, specifying to TheWrap that "two is enough. I have a lot of other ideas, and I kind of have to express them and have them come out." In November 2015, Sony Pictures Animation announced that the third film, under the tentative title of Hotel Transylvania 3, had been set for release on September 21, 2018.Despite leaving the series, Tartakovsky later announced that he would return as the director for the third installment. Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, and Andy Samberg also reprised their previous roles, as Dracula, Mavis, and Johnny, respectively, and the film was written by Tartakovsky and Austin Powers writer Michael McCullers. In June 2016, Sony also confirmed Tartakovsky's return, after his taking a leave of absence to work on the final season of his show Samurai Jack. According to Tartakovsky, he returned after he received inspiration from a "miserable" family vacation, and from the Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Vacation movies, as the film takes place aboard a cruise ship. By early November 2017, the film had been entitled Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
One of the biggest challenges for the animation team was creating the massive Kraken character and simulating the water effects and destruction caused by the massive creature.
Soundtrack
returned to score the third film, having previously scored the first two installments, while Sony Classical Records has released an official soundtrack of the trilogy. Dutch DJ Tiësto also provided music for the film's climax - "Tear It Down" for the disco party, and "Seavolution" and "Wave Rider" for Van Helsing's Kraken brain-washing music; these were all released separately from the soundtrack. DNCE's song "Cake by the Ocean" and Pitbull's song "Shake Senora" were used in promotional material. Eric Nam recorded the song "Float" for the film. "I See Love" performed by Jonas Blue featuring Joe Jonas was featured in the film's end-credits, while Joe Jonas also recorded "It's Party Time" for the film while he was voicing the Kraken. Bruno Mars' song "24K Magic" was also provided for the scene when Dracula dances on the cruise ship as Ericka makes attempts on his life and a fishman sings a cover version of "Downtown" on stage in another scene.During a scene where the characters dance, Gangnam Style plays.
Release
Theatrical
Summer Vacation was originally scheduled for release on September 21, 2018, a date that was later moved up two months earlier to July 13 as Sony rescheduled Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween for the original date instead. On June 21, 2018, Amazon announced it was offering its Amazon Prime members an early showing of the film on June 30, at about 1,000 theaters, similar to fellow Sony release Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle the previous December.Home media
Summer Vacation was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 9, 2018, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.In April 2021, Sony signed a deal giving Disney access to their legacy content, including past Hotel Transylvania films to stream on Disney+ and Hulu and appear on Disney's linear television networks. Disney's access to Sony's titles would come following their availability on Netflix.
Reception
Box office
Summer Vacation has grossed $167.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $361.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $528.6 million against a production budget of $65–80 million. On September 1, 2018, the film surpassed its predecessor, Hotel Transylvania 2, to become Sony Pictures Animation's highest-grossing film worldwide to be completely animated until it was overtaken by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in 2023; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse would later surpass Hotel Transylvania 2 to become SPA's highest-grossing film domestically in 2019 until it was also overtaken by its sequel in 2023.In the United States and Canada, Summer Vacation was released alongside the opening of Skyscraper, as well as the wide expansion of Sorry to Bother You, and was projected to gross $38–45 million from 4,267 theaters in its first weekend. The film made $1.3 million from its early 3PM screenings held by Amazon on June 30, and $2.6 million from screenings beginning at 5PM the Thursday before its official release. It went on open to $44.1 million, finishing first at the box office and landing in-between the debuts of the first two Hotel Transylvania films. The film made $23.2 million in its second weekend, finishing second behind newcomers The Equalizer 2 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. It made another $12.3 million in its third weekend, finishing fourth.