With a long-running resume of successful and beloved animated original work under his belt (such as Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Laboratory), director Genndy Tartakovsky believed he would pursue something new after making a second Hotel Translyvania film in 2015. Now, in 2018, he is geared up for the release of the third chapter in the franchise, thanks to an idea he simply couldn’t resist.
“Basically, after I finished the second movie, I was kind of burnt out, and I thought I was pretty much done with the franchise,” Tartakovsky said. “And then, that holiday, my mother-in-law and my wife’s dad, they invited us on a cruise. And as we were boarding the ship, and it was a New Year’s cruise, and so it was all families… and then it kind of hit me! I started to realize, ‘Right, what a perfect setting for our monster family?’ You can do a lot of the same themed jokes, from the hotel, but on the water. And then, I always wanted to do the story of Dracula falling in love, with his enemy, and everything started to come together.”
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The all-star cast the first two Hotel Transylvania films came back together for the third effort. This gave Tartakovsky the voices of Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, and more to work with on Hotel Transylvania 3.
Still, high quality animation and a star-studded cast is hardly enough to put butts in seats at a movie theater in today’s competitive market of animated films. Tartakovsky, as a result, set out to be as unique as possible.
“Most animated movies are very similar,” Tartakovsky said. “Right now, animation is kind of in a pigeon hole. Besides kind of like the Wes Anderson, or, of course, a lot of the European movies, most everybody in the States, the big studios, make pretty much the same film. And we’re kind of held to Pixar standards, or Disney standards, as it’s kind of always been in the animation industry. And so, you’re kind of stuck with that, and I always feel like animation could be so much more. So yeah, it definitely is hard. In a way, too, it is super-competitive, and what do you do? And, to me, as a director, the more of my point of view, the more unique it feels, the better chance that it stands out.”
In the end, this is Tartakovsky’s goal, especially in making the third film in a franchise. “That’s always the goal of a director,” he said. “The last thing you want to do is blend in. You want to stand out, and hopefully in a good way.”
Part of this includes finding a comedic rhythm which both the kids the audience and their parents beside them can appreciate. It’s a challenge. “Number one, I don’t know what a kid likes,” Tartakovsky said. “And, number two, I don’t know what an adult likes, really. Humor is the hardest thing to do. Action is so much easier, because you’re just trying to establish the mood, and a pacing, and a rhythm, and an energy. Where, in humor, comedy is so subjective. And so, to get a joke that runs across the whole age gap, is crazy. And usually, those types of gags are physical gags. If the adult isn’t dead to physical comedy, then usually we can get them. And there is no finer moment, when I sit in a screening, and the parents and the kids are all laughing at the same gag.”
While Tartakovsky has stuck around for three films in the Hotel Transylvania franchise now, he is currently on the hunt of something brand new which he can’t share the details of quite yet. “I can’t share,” Tartakovsky said. “But I’m working on something.”
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Games is now playing in theaters.
