OTTplay Lost and Found - Hotel Transylvania

Welcome to OTTplay Now You Know , one podcast that gives you all the lesser-known facts , trivia and even anecdotes for popular films and shows that you didn't know about. I'm your host Nikhil .

Today’s trivia is on the popular animated horror-comedy Hotel Transylvania. The fourth film of the franchise titled Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, was released on Amazon Prime Video in 2022. So here are some interesting lesser-known facts about the first film.

1. In the opening sequence of the film, Dracula (played by Adam Sandler), tells his guests that the prestigious hotel was developed in 1898. It is also seen that Mavis’ mother was murdered by a mob in about 1895 (known from the family portrait that Mavis shares with her mum and dad, when she was around a year old). The original Bram Stoker’s Dracula was also penned in 1896 and went into production in 1897. Hence, the narrative of the film tries to abide by Count Dracula’s actual years, as if the character was based on Stoker’s novel.
2. Unlike most animated features, the voice actors did not record their dialogues separately. Genndy Tartakovsky made the voice actors Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, and David Spade record their lines together as if it were a live-action production.
3. At the 10-minute mark into the film, a scene set in Mavis’ room depicts a poster of Selena Gomez, stuck to her wall. Gomez played the role of Mavis in the film.
4. Hotel Transylvania is a rare movie that features a reference to a song from a rival studio. In a scene in the Sony Pictures Animation film, Jonathan draws references from The Lion King’s Simba and Nala. The Lion King, as everyone knows, is backed by Walt Disney Pictures.
5. Mavis was earlier supposed to be played by Miley Cyrus, but the actor-singer was replaced in the film by Selena Gomez. The change in casting took place after Cyrus got involved in a controversy surrounding a photograph, showing her suggestingly posing with a cake. The studio was concerned that the photograph would impact the family-friendly image of Disney.
6. It is almost impossible to imagine Murray the Mummy as anything but the gigantic, globular mummy with a beaming grin and beady eyes. But the character was originally supposed to look completely different — tall and lanky. However, animator Carlos Grangel believed Murray could do with a makeover, and thus was born the version of the character as we know it.
7. Pixar’s Monster Inc. and Sony’s Hotel Transylvania share a few common narrative similarities, and the most noticeable being the fact that the so-called ‘monsters’ in both films are terrified of human beings. It thereby subverts the idea of a monster.
8. The story is set in the real-life historical region of Romania, called Wallachia. It is the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the real-life inspiration for Dracula. He was in fact nicknamed Dracula, after his father whose name was Vlad Dracul. Several myths about vampires originated from Romania and is one of the reasons why Bram Stoker decided to set his story about Dracula in the country.

If you haven't watched the film yet then do so streaming on Netflix.

Well that's the OTTplay Now You Know episode for today, Until the next podcast it's your host Nikhil signing off.

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