Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is skipping theaters in $100 million Amazon deal
Adam Sandler won't be there, but Drac and his pals are going streaming for their last adventure
Sorry, Hotel Transylvania fans: Get ready to say “Blegh!” or “Blah!” or whatever other noises a disappointed vampire might might make, because the fourth and final chapter in the saga is losing its theatrical run and heading straight to streaming. That’s according to Variety, which says Sony Pictures Animation is “nearing a deal” with Amazon Prime Video to hand over the global streaming rights to the new Hotel Transylvania movie for “over $100 million.” That’s a lot of money for one animated kids movie, especially one animated kids movie that recast its lead (Adam Sandler isn’t playing Dracula this time around), but Variety points out that the previous three movies have made $1.3 billion for Sony worldwide. Assuming streaming dollars are equitable to theatrical dollars, even though they’re probably not, that actually might be a hot deal for Amazon.
Sony’s decision to move Hotel Transylvania: Transformania out of theaters and onto Amazon Prime comes in the wake of the rising COVID-19 delta variant, which is surely going to continue getting worse before it gets any better (barring a miracle where the many assholes of this country decide to grow up overnight). Sony also just delayed Venom: Let There Be Carnage by three weeks for the same reason, but the studio is evidently hoping that one will still do some good business at the box office—and/or it might have existing deals in place that would prevent a streaming release, especially now that Scarlett Johansson has taken her shot at the Mouse.
Anyway, as stated above, this will supposedly be the final movie in the Hotel Transylvania series. Sandler and Kevin James aren’t coming back, but Selena Gomez, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Molly Shannon, Keegan-Michael Key, and Fran Drescher will be there. It was directed by Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska.