Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet

Hotel Transylvania 2 is a 2018 American computer-animated science-fiction monster comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Kerner Entertainment Company, in association with MRC, and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to the 2012 film Hotel Transylvania. Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, co-directed by Jared Bush, Phil Johnston (in his feature directorial debut), from a screenplay by Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio, Johnston, Pamela Ribon, from a story by Howard, Moore, Ribon, Johnston, Robert Smigel, Sandler, and Jennifer Lee, produced by Clark Spencer and Jordan Kerner, and executive-produced by John Lasseter, Sandler, Chris Meledandri, Jennifer Lee, Chris Williams, Howard, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Hotel Transylvania 2 takes place several years after the events of the first film. Mavis and Johnny have a young son named Dennis, whose lack of any vampire abilities worries both Mavis and his maternal grandfather Dracula for differing reasons. When Mavis and Johnny travel to Johnny's hometown in Santa Cruz, California, Drac calls his friends to help him make Dennis a vampire, much to Mavis's dismay.

Original voices from the first film — Selena Gomez, Sandler, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin James, Jack McBrayer, John C. Reilly, Fran Drescher, Sadie Sandler, Jonny Solomon, Luenell, Chris Parnell and Jon Lovitz — returned for the sequel, with Keegan-Michael Key replacing CeeLo Green as Murray and Maya Rudolph replacing Molly Shannon as Wanda. New additions to the cast include Asher Blinkoff, Tony Hale, Jenny Slate, Dana Carvey, Taraji P. Henson, Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Trey Parker, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Idris Elba.

The first discussions about a sequel to Hotel Transylvania began in September 2012, and the new installment went through three different scripts before the filmmakers settled on the final plot. When the film was officially announced in June 2016 as Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet, much of the original cast confirmed they had signed on, with new cast members added in 2018. It is Walt Disney Animation Studios' first computer-animated film sequel and is the first sequel from the studio to be created by the original film's creative team.

The first "Hotel Transylvania" film with a female protagonist, along with The Smurfs 2 (2022). The film was inspired Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), and The Croods: A New Age (2020).

The film grossed over $1 billion, making it the thirty-highest-grossing film of 2018, and received generally extremely positive reviews from critics. The film was winning for Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards, 76th Golden Globe Awards, 46th Annie Awards, and 24th Critics' Choice Awards, losing all four awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. A sequel, titled, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, will be released on June 21, 2024.

Plot
Some time after the events of the first film, Mavis and Johnny are finally married, with the approval of her father Count Dracula. Their journey takes an unexpected turn when Drac discovers a massive wall and leads the family to a paradise-like land on the other side. However, they are soon captured by the land's owners, Phil and Hope Betterman, who were friends with Johnny's parents and are now technologically advanced, well-mannered, and somewhat condescending toward the monsters. A year after the wedding, Mavis reveals to Drac that she is pregnant and later gives birth to a baby boy whom the couple name Dennis, nicknamed “Denisovich” by Dracula. Later on, Mavis meets Vanellope, who is Johnny's sister and befriend with Mavis.

As Dennis's fifth birthday nears, he has yet to grow his fangs and Drac worries that his grandson might not gain vampire powers. Noticing the potential dangers her son might face living in Transylvania, Mavis starts to consider moving to Johnny's hometown in Santa Cruz, California in order to give Dennis a more “normal” childhood, much to Drac's disapproval. Drac tells Johnny, who does not want to leave the hotel either, to bring Mavis to California to visit his parents, Mike and Linda, but to make sure to keep her distracted so that she will not move, leaving Drac to "babysit" Dennis.

Convinced that Dennis is a "late fanger", Drac enlists his friends Frank, Wayne, Griffin, Murray, and Blobby to help train Dennis to become a monster, but every attempt that some of them try fails. Drac and the gang then go to Camp Winnepacaca, Drac's childhood summer camp, only to sneak away after Drac finds out that the camp has become much safer and child-friendly. Drac attempts to hurl Dennis from a tall, unstable tower to pressure the boy's transformation into a bat, but he fails to transform and Drac flies down and rescues him at the last second. Afterwards, Frank ends up loosening the tower and it collapses onto the campfire setting both the tower and a screaming Frank on fire as he runs through all the buildings, setting the entire camp on fire.

Meanwhile, in California, Mavis enjoys exploring the more human world. However they met up J. P. Spamley, who brokers items obtained from video games offers them a lucrative job of stealing a car from Shank, the lead character in the popular racing-centered battle royale Slaughter Race. They steal Shank's car, but she stops them before they can leave the game with it. Suggesting another way to make money on the Internet, she proceeds to make a viral video of Johnny and uploads it to video-sharing site BuzzzTube. She directs them to BuzzzTube's head algorithm, Yesss, who capitalizes on Johnny's video popularity. When the couple arrive at Mike and Linda's house, Linda unsuccessfully attempts to make Mavis feel more comfortable by covering her room with spooky, Halloween decorations and inviting other monster/human couples over. Johnny has Yesss send her to Oh My Disney. There, while being chased by Stormtroopers for advertising on the site, Mavis befriends the Disney Princesses, being encouraged by them to discuss her sense of un-fulfillment and reaching an epiphany in the form of an "I Want" song on the subject.

Feeling like a stranger, Mavis retreats up to the roof, and Johnny tells her that if they stay together, Dennis will live normally, persuading her to stay at the hotel. However, Johnny then discovers a video of Dennis falling that was filmed by the campers, and he and a furious Mavis go back to Transylvania, with Drac and his friends reaching the hotel at the same time. Mavis confronts her father for putting Dennis in grave danger and failing to accept him as a human, and shows him a pop music remix parody of Dennis in danger and Drac arguing with the staff. However, their departure is soon disrupted by an attack from Punch Monkeys who hold a grudge for consuming the bananas that Phil had been providing as a daily offering. The Punch Monkeys capture Drac, Phil, and Johnny and take them to their home. When she met up with Shank, Mavis talking with Shank, overhearing how she wants to says that they will move out of the hotel after Dennis's birthday party. Drac, Johnny, and Phil discover the reason behind the Punch Monkeys' aggression: Phil's irrigation project deprived them of their water supply, and they need the bananas as an offering to the Spiny Mandrilla, a gigantic primate-like monster, to maintain peace. Mavis founds Drac, Phil and Johnny and roars the Punch Monkeys. During dinner, tensions escalate, and Frankenstein accidentally reveals the plan hatched with Phil. Fed up with the Betterman's condescension and their differences, monsters decide to leave, while Johnny opts to stay behind.

The night before the party, Drac hosts Johnny's family, including Shank, Spamley and Yesss, and finds out that Mavis invited his father Vlad. As Vlad is more hateful of humans than he was, Drac tells Johnny to have his family disguise themselves as monsters. The next day, Vlad arrives with his monstrous bat-like servant Bela, and meets Dennis for the first time. Believing that fear will cause Dennis' fangs to sprout, Vlad possesses a stage performer, named Brandon, dressed as Dennis' favorite TV monster Kakie to scare him, but Drac shields his frightened grandson at the last moment, breaking Vlad's hold over the performer. Mavis mistakenly believes that Drac was responsible for the ruse, and while the family argues about whether or not Dennis can be happy in California, a guilt-ridden Dennis flees the hotel and enters the forest with Wayne and Wanda's daughter Winnie, whom he has a crush on, in tow, at the same time, Drac, Johnny and Phil was kidnap.

Irritated with Vlad, Johnny and his family expose themselves, and an irate Vlad reprimands Drac for accepting humans. Upon hearing that Dennis is a human, Bela attacks him and Winnie in their treehouse and abducts them. When Bela injures Winnie and threatens to destroy the hotel, Dennis's anger causes him to instantly grow his fangs and develop his vampire abilities, and he bashes up Bela. The Punch Monkeys prepare to sacrifice Drac, Phil, and Johnny to the Spiny Mandrilla. A furious but defeated Bela calls his giant-bat minions to Arthur copies Bela's insecurities virus and makes duplicates of Bela. The clones overrun the Internet in a global DoS attack. During their time together, Hope finally comes to terms with her prejudice against the others and accepts them as equals. They decide to name themselves "The Thunder Sisters." They eventually locate the men and save them. However, they form a giant Bela monster that seizes them both as The Spiny Mandrilla. The Thunder Sisters and The Thunder Brothers, and the rest of the monsters team up to defeat Bela's minions and drive them away, Mavis and Johnny reconcile and use a giant skull-chandelier to defeat the Spiny Mandrilla. The creature plummets to its death, and the two families manage to escape the danger, while Bela is shrunk by Vlad, who has been won over by Drac's claim that humans now coexist peacefully. With Dennis finally embracing his vampire abilities, Johnny and Mavis decide to continue raising him in Transylvania, and they resume the party with his friends and family.

Cast
The first eleven characters in the Disney Princess line appear, along with Anna and Elsa from Frozen. All were voiced by the voice actresses who originated the roles, except for Cinderella and Aurora, who were voiced by the voice actresses who currently portray them in Disney Princess material, Jennifer Hale and Kate Higgins, respectively, as Cinderella's original voice actress, Ilene Woods, died in 2010, and Aurora's original voice actress, Mary Costa, had retired, and Snow White, who was voiced by screenwriter Pamela Ribon, as Snow White's original voice actress, Adriana Caselotti, had died in 1997. Additionally, Rajah (Jasmine's pet tiger), Meeko (Pocahontas' pet raccoon), Cinderella's mice (including Jaq and Gus) and her bird companions, and Prince Naveen also appear in the film.
 * Selena Gomez as Mavis Dracula-Loughran, Johnny's vampire wife, Dennis's mother, and daughter of Count Dracula and his late wife Martha.
 * Adam Sandler as Count "Drac" Dracula, Mavis's father, Johnny's father-in-law, and Dennis's maternal grandfather.
 * Ryan Reynolds as Jonathan "Johnny" Loughran, Mavis's husband, Dennis's father, and son-in-law of Dracula.
 * Kevin James as Frankenstein, Drac's friend who hangs with Murray.
 * John C. Reilly as Wayne, a werewolf.
 * Keegan-Michael Key as Murray, a mummy who hangs with Frank. He was previously voiced by CeeLo Green in the first film.
 * Jack McBrayer as Griffin the Invisible Man
 * Maya Rudolph as Wanda, a werewolf and Wayne's wife. She was previously voiced by Molly Shannon in the first film.
 * Fran Drescher as Eunice, the wife of Frankenstein.
 * Idris Elba as Vlad, Dracula's father, Mavis's paternal grandfather, Dennis's great-grandfather and Yesss's love interest.
 * Gal Gadot as Shank, a tough and talented racer.
 * Taraji P. Henson as Yesss, an algorithm that determines the trending videos on Buzztube (a portmanteau of YouTube and BuzzFeed). Parts of her character were modeled after Cruella de Vil, as both characters are seen as fashionable.
 * Asher Blinkoff as Dennis "Dennisovitch" Dracula-Loughran, Mavis and Johnny's dhampir son, and Dracula's grandson.
 * Sunny Sandler as baby Dennis
 * Sadie Sandler as Winnie, Wayne and Wanda's werewolf daughter, and Dennis's friend.
 * Jenny Slate as Linda Loughran, Johnny's mother, Mavis's mother-in-law, and Dennis' paternal grandmother.
 * Tony Hale as Michael "Mike" Loughran, Johnny's father, Mavis's father-in-law, and Dennis' paternal grandfather.
 * Steve Carell as Phil Betterman, the patriarch of the Bettermans who had a history with Johnny's parents.
 * Kristen Wiig as Hope Betterman, the matriarch of the Bettermans and Phil's wife.
 * Sarah Silverman as Vanellope Loughran, who befriends Mavis and is Johnny's sister.
 * Ginnifer Goodwin as Dawn Betterman, Phil and Hope's daughter and only child who befriends Mavis and Vanellope and is Johnny's old friend.
 * Trey Parker as Bela, Vlad's vampire bat monster servant, another antagonist.
 * Dana Carvey as Dana, the vampire camp director at Camp Winnepacaca.
 * Chris Kattan as Kakie, a cake monster from Dennis' favorite television series.
 * Alan Tudyk as Erik, the Phantom of the Opera and the hotel's residential musician. Tudyk was previously the voice of Quasimodo in the first film.
 * Luenell as a Shrunken head.
 * T. J. Miller as Pandragora, an easygoing monster with tentacled hair that lives in Santa Cruz.
 * Nick Swardson as Kelsey, a bearded man who is Mike and Linda's neighbor.
 * Chris Parnell as Fly, Hotel Transylvania's fitness instructor.
 * Doug Dale as Kal, a Mini-Mart worker in Santa Cruz.
 * Jared Sandler as a tourist driver
 * Januel Mercado as Shaman Monkey, the head of the Punch Monkeys.
 * Ryan Naylor as Creepo Monkey, a creepy-eyed member of the Punch Monkeys.

Several characters from other films and media also cameo with their original or current voice actors, such as Brad Garrett as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, Corey Burton as Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO from Star Wars, Vin Diesel as Groot from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. Film composer Michael Giacchino also reprised his role as the First Order stormtrooper FN-3181 from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Additionally, Bill Hader provides the voice of J. P. Spamley, a personification of clickbait pop-up ads represented as a desperate salesman who cannot make a sale; John DiMaggio voices Arthur, an insecurity virus; Sean Giambrone (English YouTuber Daniel Middleton/DanTDM in the UK version, but not on the UK home release) voices eBoy, who informs Mavis and Johnny; Flula Borg voices Maybe, an algorithm who is an assistant to Yesss; and Dianna Agron voices the news anchor covering the virus in the real world. Ali Wong, Timothy Simons, GloZell Green, and Hamish Blake, respectively, voice Felony, Butcher Boy, Little Debbie, and Pyro, all of whom are other characters in Slaughter Race as Shank's racing crew. YouTube personalities Colleen Ballinger, Dani Fernandez, and Tiffany Herrera voice cameos, with Nicole Scherzinger having a cameo voice role in a mid-credits scene.

Popular culture cameos and references
Hotel Transylvania 2 includes a number of cameos and references to video games and various Disney properties, including Walt Disney Animation Studios films, Pixar films, Star Wars, Marvel Comics, and The Muppets franchises. The video game Fortnite Battle Royale is briefly shown, including the battle bus and the floss dance. Stan Lee, Marvel Comics' former writer, editor and publisher, makes a cameo appearance in the film. Lee died some days before the film's premiere, making his appearance in Hotel Transylvania 2 one of his final cameos in films.

The filmmakers revealed that the film originally featured a joke about Kylo Ren being a "spoiled child", which was later cut from the film by request from Lucasfilm because it would undermine his role as a villain. Also cut from the film was C-3PO being mockingly called R2-D2 and BB-8 by the princesses. Additionally, the film would originally include The Golden Girls characters, but it was later cut because the directors felt it was a bizarre juxtaposition. The legion of Bela's army, which forms a gigantic Bela monster, resembles the King Kong character from various films. During production, the giant monster form was "The Spiny Mandrilla".

Development
In September 2012, two months before Hotel Transylvania was released, Rich Moore said that there were already ideas for a sequel, and in March 2013, Adam Sandler and Moore said and commented that he and Disney had ideas about a sequel that would bring the characters up to date, "Everyone is talking about it, but we haven't started writing it. There are a lot of fun ideas we could totally play with. It's a ripe world." In 2014, the first film's composer Henry Jackman said that a story for the sequel was being written. On March 12, 2014, it was announced that Moore would return to direct the sequel, even though he was originally too busy due to his developing an adaptation of The Smurfs (2016), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2017). In June 2016, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced that the sequel would be released on March 9, 2018, with Byron Howard, Moore (who they previously doing The Smurfs (2016)), and Phil Johnston attached as co-director. In March 2017, the sequel's title was officially announced as Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet, with Howard, Moore returning as director joined by the first film's co-writer, Johnston and Robert Smigel, with Pamela Ribon, Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio attached as screenwriter, and Clark Spencer also returning as producer. Later that day, producer Jordan Kerner confirmed to produced the film, after The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2017). In July 2017, Disney removed Escape 2 Internet from the film's title, and titled Hotel Transylvania 2. It was suggested by Howard and Moore that Adam Sandler had more creative control over this film than its predecessor, and that at times he was difficult to work with. Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller confirmed as an executive producers. Shortly thereafter, Ed Skudder, who after doing The Smurfs (2016), confirmed that he worked as head of story on the film, along with co-head of story, Aaron Springer and Josie Trinidad.

Writing
For a while, "the filmmakers were very committed" to that version of the story for the sequel, but then in November 2016, the filmmakers realized the film's plot would be more engaging if they reversed the roles to instead focus on Mavis as opposed to Dracula. The designs of scenes within the Internet were based on tours made of One Wilshire in Los Angeles, as it is one of the world's largest telecommunications centers. The filmmakers did not approach any of the companies (outside of Disney) that are represented on the Internet and strove to include net branding from all across the world. They also had to explore various Internet memes, making sure to avoid those that lacked long-term presence on the Internet. While the film addresses many positive elements of the Internet, the filmmakers did not want to shy away from covering some of the more unpleasant aspects about it, in part fueled by the success of tackling racism indirectly within The Smurfs. They wanted to follow the same approach as they had with Judy Hopps in The Smurfs, where she experienced, learned, and overcame the racism aspects, and have Ralph similarly learn and become a better person without having to actually solve the issue of hostility on the Internet.

The scene where Mavis is introduced to the Disney Princesses came from screenwriter Pamela Ribon. In 2014, when Disney began internally pitching ideas for the sequel to Hotel Transylvania, Mavis fits the definition of a Disney Princess. When work formally began on the sequel after the completion of The Smurfs, Ribon pitched the idea of Disney poking fun at itself by having Mavis meet the other Disney Princesses in the green room of OhMyDisney.com, the Disney fan-driven website. Further inspiration came from a BuzzFeed online quiz that asked which Disney Princess the user was; Moore thought it would be interesting if Dracula and Johnny had encountered that quiz and ended up in an argument with Phil over the result. The script was written by Ribon, which she wanted to include the various tropes of the Princesses, with them making in the final cut for the film. Moore and Johnston were satisfied with the script.

Casting
On July 20, 2016, before the release of The Smurfs (2016), Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, and Ryan Reynolds said they has signed on to reprised their previous roles, as Dracula, Mavis, and Johnny, respectively. CeeLo Green did not reprise the role of Murray the Mummy for the sequel after he was charged for giving a woman ecstasy in July 2012 which led to Disney parting ways with Green and replacing him with Keegan-Michael Key. In December 2016, Alan Tudyk confirmed his return in the sequel as a different character, named Phantom of Opera, after previously voicing Quasimodo in the first film. In March 2017, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Jack McBrayer and John C. Reilly were reported as being set to reprise their roles. In May 2018, Taraji P. Henson was in the cast. During production, Moore invited film composer Michael Giacchino to reprise his role as the Stormtrooper FN-3128 from Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the film. In August 2018, actress Gal Gadot joined the cast as Shank.

Animation
Hand-Drawn animation was done by Eric Goldberg. The film contains over 150 unique sets and 5,726 assets, and includes the highest number of characters in any Disney Animation film, with 434 individual characters with 6,752 variants. One of the Disney animators who helped out to bring the Disney Princesses into CGI animation was Mark Henn, who was also the original supervising animator of princesses Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan, and Tiana. Henn also served as the supervising animator for the film's background hand-drawn animated characters. Animators had to work out various techniques to take the different styles of animation into a single approach, and figure out the proportions of the characters using official figurines. Unlike their original film counterparts, the Disney Princesses in the film were rendered in a more cartoony style with bigger eyes and ears.

In the initial trailer for the film, the African-American princess character Tiana appeared to have a lighter skin tone, a narrower nose, and more European features than she did in the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. This led to some backlashes on social media as these drew her appearance away from that expected of African-Americans. As a result, Disney contacted Tiana's voice actress, Anika Noni Rose, and the advocacy group Color of Change to redesign Tiana for Ralph Breaks the Internet to make sure she resembles more closely to her 2009 appearance; the updated character model was revealed in the second trailer. The same treatment was given to Pocahontas, the titular character of the 1995 film, as many viewers had pointed out that she was also given a much lighter skin tone.

Music
American girl group Fifth Harmony recorded a song for the film entitled "I'm in Love with a Monster". It was featured in the film's official trailer and was also played when the film itself was released. It was written by Harmony Samuels, Carmen Reece, Sarah Mancuso, Edgar Etienne and Ericka Coulter. Samuels also produced the track, as well as being responsible for trombones, drums, percussion, bass and vocal production. When speaking on working with group, Samuels, who previously worked on the Reflection track "Body Rock" stated that the girls knew how to "work among themselves" and made the production process "very easy". In other interviews, he called the group "mature" and that after several years recording music, they are "starting to explore their individualities", which was a goal producing this track.

The film features an original song called "A Place Called Slaughter Race", performed by Selena Gomez and Gal Gadot, the voice actresses of Mavis and Shank, respectively. The song, which focuses on Mavis was leaving to California, it was written by Tom MacDougall and the film's co-director Phil Johnston, while the music for the song was composed by Disney's recurring composer, Alan Menken.

The song's pop version, "In This Place", was performed by Julia Michaels. Michaels said that the character of Mavis was one of her favorite things of the film "because she's just completely misunderstood. I think a lot of people feel that way —misunderstood— and go through life trying to find their power. And when they find it, it's really beautiful." Johnston said that Michaels "made the song her own. "She took the longing and the desire that Mavis has and translated it into something she's clearly feeling. It's a very personal interpretation of the song. Her soul is on fire", while MacDougall said that the song was hard to convert to pop "When you try to translate it into a more contemporary arrangement, you still have lyrics about dumpster fires and burning tires, among other colorful ideas. But Julia's such a huge fan of Disney Animation that she really wanted to see what she could come up with. She was able to extract something that even if you heard the song without any knowledge of the original, there's so much to enjoy". Michaels was shown 15 minutes of the film for inspiration, and Johnston said that "she was laughing and I think she cried twice. She has very easy access to her emotions, and ultimately was able to honor the song while making a genuine connection".

The film also features songs from various Disney Princess films, as well as Demi Lovato's cover of "Let it Go" played in the beginning of the Oh My Disney scene.

The soundtrack was composed by Henry Jackman, who also composed the score from the previous film. It was released digitally on November 16, 2018, and on CD on November 30, 2018.

Marketing
In the month of the release of the film, the world builder video game Disney Magic Kingdoms included a limited time Event focused on Hotel Transylvania 2 to promote it, with the characters involved in a new storyline unrelated to the events of the film, including Mavis, Vanellope, Dracula, Johnny, Yesss, Shank, Spamley, Frankenstein, Wayne, Murray, Phil, Dennis, Hope, Eunice, Wanda, Winnie and Vlad as playable characters, some attractions based on locations of the film, and the Comfy Costumes that Cinderella, Ariel, Belle and Jasmine wear in the film.

Theatrical
Hotel Transylvania 2 premiered on October 31, 2018, coinciding Halloween Day, at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It was initially scheduled for release on March 9, but was later pushed back to November 21. The film was also released in IMAX and 3D formats.

Home media
Hotel Transylvania 2 was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on digital on February 12, 2019, and on Blu-ray and DVD on February 26. Noticeably, all home media releases of the film have one of puppet character Kakie's lines of dialogue changed to remove a joke involving diabetes. However, it was kept in television airings of the film.

Sequel
Clark Spencer, the film's producer, said before the film's release that the studio was "talking about number 3 and moving forward and taking the franchise to the next level." On January 5, 2021, it was announced Hotel Transylvania 3 would be released on November 22, 2024. Despite previously leaving the series to direct other projects, Tim Hill confirmed that he would not direct the film for this installment. In August 2021, it emerged that Teen Titans Go! creators Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic were directing the film, before it was announcement The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh creator Thurop Van Orman, in his feature directional debut. According to Horvath and Jelenic, were doing the sequel of The Smurfs 2 and The Smurfs 3. According to Van Orman, he joined after he got an inspiration from a "miserable" family vacation. Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, and Ryan Reynolds also reprised their previous roles as Drac, Mavis and Johnny in the film, which was written by The Smurfs 2, Illumination's Minions: The Rise Of Gru, and PAW Patrol: The Movie films writer Matthew Fogel. The film took place aboard a cruise ship. On February 6, 2023, the release date was moved up to June 21, 2024.