Sony Pictures Animation is expanding its “Hotel Transylvania” franchise as a TV series that centres on Mavis, Dracula’s teenage daughter.
TheWrap broke the news on Tuesday (14th July) that Sony and Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana Studio are planning to create a TV series that would follow Mavis and her group of teenaged friends. But the show will not be released until 2017.
“Hotel Transylvania” is a 2012 American 3D computer animated fantasy comedy film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of “Samurai Jack”, “Dexter’s Laboratory”, and “Sym-Bionic Titan”. It tells the story of Count Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler), the owner of a hotel called Hotel Transylvania where the world’s monsters can take a rest from human civilization.
One day, he invites some of the most famous monsters to celebrate his daughter Mavis’ (voiced by Selena Gomez) 118th birthday. However, he must protect Mavis from falling in love with an unexpected traveler named Jonathan (voiced by Andy Sandberg) before the hotel’s guests learn that there is a human in the castle, which may jeopardise the hotel’s future.
The film was met with mixed critical reception from critics, but received generally positive reviews from mainstream audiences. It earned a total of $358 million on a budget of $85 million and was further nominated for a Golden Globe Award for “Best Animated Feature Film”.
Due to its surprising success, Nelvana Studio will develop and produce a TV series based on the movie in Toronto. Casting for the TV series has yet to be announced, but the distribution will be handled by Sony Pictures Television in the US and by Nelvana Enterprises outside of the US. Rick Mischel from Sony Pictures Animation is executive producing it alongside Colin Bohm and Irene Weibel from Nelvana.
Regarding the development of the series, Bohm, vice president and head of Corus Kids, said in a statement:
We’re excited to be entering into a new relationship with Sony Pictures Animation to extend the world of ‘Hotel Transylvania’ into a new TV series. The hilarious characters and clever premise of “Hotel Transylvania” set the stage for endless story possibilities.
Kristine Belson, president of Sony Pictures Animation also commented:
Audiences have embraced the world and characters of “Hotel Transylvania”, so we are thrilled to be partnering with Nelvana to take them on new adventures, expanding on the teenage years of Mavis and her friends at the world-famous monster five star resort!
Mischel from Sony Pictures Animation, added, “Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana is a perfect creative partner and we look forward to sharing more Hotel Transylvania monster laughs with fans of all ages.”
The sequel of “Hotel Transylvania” will see the return of Sandler, Sandberg, Gomez, Kevin James, David Space, Steve Buscemi, and Fran Drescher.
The official synopsis of “Hotel Transylvania 2” is as follows:
Everything seems to be changing for the better at Hotel Transylvania. Dracula’s rigid monster-only hotel policy has finally relaxed, opening up its doors to human guests. But behind closed coffins, Drac is worried that his adorable half-human, half-vampire grandson, Dennis, isn’t showing signs of being a vampire. So while Mavis is busy visiting her human in-laws with Johnny – and in for a major cultural shock of her own – “Vampa” Drac enlists his friends Frank, Murray, Wayne and Griffin to put Dennis through a “monster-in-training” boot camp. But little do they know that Drac’s grumpy and very old, old, old school dad Vlad is about to pay a family visit to the hotel. And when Vlad finds out that his great-grandson is not a pure blood – and humans are now welcome at Hotel Transylvania – things are going to get batty!
“Hotel Transylvania 2″ is slated for release on 25th September 2015.
For more information, visit the movie’s official Facebook page and Twitter.
