July 6th, 2018 
Jackson Murphy 
Back in 2003 Michelle Murdocca said goodbye to live-action visual effects work and joined the world of feature film animation. Over her 15 years at Sony Pictures Animation Murdocca has produced the first two Open Season movies and all three Hotel Transylvania films, including the latest – Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which opens July 13. I recently set sail with Murdocca on this Q&A adventure to get the inside scoop on the latest chapter of this monster franchise.
Jackson Murphy: Did you think when you were promoting the original Hotel Transylvania six years ago that this would turn into a three-movie franchise – and a TV series?
Michelle Murdocca: At that time… no. I knew the movie had potential. Many years ago, when I came onto Sony Pictures Animation, the reason that I joined was because I wanted to produce Hotel Transylvania. So that was about 15 years ago, and I knew that there was potential that this could become a big franchise. But I had no idea that it would become what it is today. So it’s super exciting. Six years ago, I was just happy to finish the first one and hope that it would do well.
JM: It did very well, and the second one did even better. The first movie was called “Hotel Transylvania” – the second “Hotel Transylvania 2”. But this third movie has the subtitle “Summer Vacation”. Why did you decide to include that in the title?
MM: It’s the beginning of summer and summer vacation for parents and children all over the world. We just felt like it would be really fitting, and since the movie does take place in summer vacation, and the family goes on a cruise, it just felt really appropriate.
JM: What’s the best vacation you’ve ever had?
MM: I would have to say… it was when I went to Greece and Italy – probably 23 or 24 years ago. I did not take a cruise, but I was on many boats.
JM: And this gang in the movie goes on quite the cruise. And the name of the ship is the Legacy. I feel like there’s got to be a meaning behind that name.
MM: It really just has to do with Drac. Drac is a family man, and he is traditional. Legacy really just refers to Drac leaving… it’s a bit of a double entendre. It has to do with Drac, but it also has to do with Van Helsing. When we develop these movies, we go through a couple iterations of it. Van Helsing, for him it was all about chasing monsters… and leaving behind a legacy. For Drac, on the one hand, it’s a legacy in that it’s always about family. For Van Helsing, it was really kind of an inside joke, if you will, when we did have a lot of dialogue about him chasing after the monsters – because it was his legacy.
JM: Have you had a new appreciation, as you’ve been working on these three movies, for the hotel service – and maybe even the cruise world?
MM: Something that I never considered doing in my entire adult life was taking a cruise. And this summer, my kids and I are in London and Europe. And I said, “Hey guys, you wanna go on a cruise?” And they were like, “Really, Mom?” It’s just something that I never considered. However, we’ve been on a cruise for two years in making the movie, so I just felt like, it’s an appropriate thing to do – to get on a boat and cruise around the Mediterranean. So yeah, I have an appreciation and a curiosity, actually, for what a real cruise would be like.
JM: And working with Genndy Tartakovsky, the director of this series. He’s a co-screenwriter this time. Could you tell that Genndy was more passionate about this one because he was one of the writers?
MM: Absolutely – because it was his idea to begin with. The idea for the movie was born out of a trip that his in-laws took the family on. So when we were done with the second movie, his in-laws surprised him with a cruise around Christmastime. And when Genndy was on the cruise and experiencing it all with his family, he was like, “You know what? This is a great idea for the next movie.”
He pitched it. We talked about it. He pitched it to the studio. They loved it. So really it was his baby: to come-up with the idea, he wrote the first draft, and Michael McCuthers joined in and really helped out. It was really close to Genndy’s heart because it was based on his own experience.
JM: And that’s pretty remarkable… because it’s been less than three years since the last “Transylvania” movie, so it seems like all these decisions are being made at a rapid speed.
MM: That’s correct. We took six and a half years to make the first movie, three years to make the second, and this one was basically done in two years plus a couple months.
JM: Wow.
MM: We did it a lightning speed. It’s pretty unusual, but we run a tight ship. And Genndy is one of those directors that knows exactly what he wants, so it’s super-easy for us to communicate with all the designers and then the animators and the actors. We have such a good rapport with the whole team that everyone just pulled together, jumped in, and we got it done.
JM: I like the pun that you run a tight ship. That really applies to this movie.
MM: It’s true! We run a tight ship.
JM: I saw the movie at one of the Amazon Prime members screenings. The showings made $1.3 million, which is fantastic. How did you get involved with Amazon to set-up those screenings?
MM: At the studio level, they’ve been doing some deals with Amazon, and it just seemed like a great opportunity. We have such a great, built-in fanbase, so it was just a nice thing to be able to do for Prime members and our fans… of which apparently there are many!
JM: There were a lot of kids at the screening, and many parents laughing – especially during the plane crash sequence at the beginning.
MM: That’s a big favorite – the gremlin sequence. It’s super fun. Love the gremlins. They were just a fun, new little add-on. And that whole sequence goes over really well with audiences.
JM: There’s a lot of music in this movie, going along with the recent trend of music in many animated movies. Tell me about the choices you made with incorporating the music into this story.
MM: Music and dance is usually a big part of the “Hotel Transylvania” franchise, so we just wanted to have a lot of fun with it. We took a lot of opportunities to just throw-in all different kinds of music. You notice there’s not just one style of music. And we really tried to appease audiences of all ages – and just make the music feel really true to whatever character was the focus of the scene.
“24K Magic” for Drac when he’s getting ready, and Ericka is going after him, was totally appropriate and perfect. In fact, we screened that song with that sequence in the first screening we ever did, which was a full storyboard screening. And we got a huge reaction out of it. And then we tried a bunch of different songs, and we ended-up coming back to “24K Magic” – just because it feels so right for the sequence. And all of the others we used were… perfectly appropriate.
JM: And one of the subplots that feels kinda real – involves Mavis figuring out if she really wants to have a new mom in her life?
MM: I feel like Selena [Gomez] as Mavis really brought a lot of personal experience to her character this time around. I don’t know it is true to her personal life, but she definitely was able to embody the idea of, “Oh my gosh – I’m gonna lose my dad to another woman.” And she has a lot invested in her dad – and she lost her mother so many years ago: I don’t know if she would be ready to really embrace someone, especially someone outside of the monster community who she didn’t know. But she needed to come around and accept.
JM: Do you think we’re gonna see more of Drac and the pack, in some form, in the future?
MM: I think you will. Of course, it depends on how well the movie does, but there seems to be a lot of love for this franchise. And I hope we keep giving. My guess is that you will see something of Drac and the pack.
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