Director Genndy Tartakovsky, who gave a comedic twist to the Dracula lore with hit animation film "Hotel Transylvania", is back with a sequel, which he says will take the theme of "accepting change" forward.
Tartakovsky and producer Michelle Murdocca hit the bull's eye with their 2012 movie about Dracula's daughter Mavis falling in love with a human after he lands at the hotel run by her vampire father.
The sequel, slated to be released in India this Friday by Sony Pictures Animation, revolves around Mavis' motherhood and Dracula's attempt to raise his grandchild as a vampire.
"I think it's acceptance. People accept change, especially nowadays where, not to get too political or pop-cultury, but with the whole Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn Jenner thing, people are pretty accepting of it.
"... Change is part of our culture. Everything's new. We're all expressing ourselves in a very unique way, and people are for the most part accepting," Tartakovsky said while promoting the movie in Cancun, Mexico.
Murdocca agreed with Tartakovsky, saying part of "Dracula's arc has been accepting and letting go of fear."
"We're just carrying that through in this movie. And also just being aware of how we can all blend together," she said.
The movie has a stellar voice-cast in Adam Sandler (Dracula), Selena Gomez (Mavis), Mel Brooks (Vlad), Andy Samberg (Jonathan), Steve Buscemi (Wayne the Werewolf), Molly Shannon, David Spade (the Invisible Man), Asher Blinkoff (Dennis) and Kevin James (Frankenstein) among others.
Murdocca said the message of humans and monsters co-existing and finding a way to live together carries over from the first movie.
"Now everyone's living together. And while Dracula has a hard time accepting it, it's sort of a carry on from the first movie where he had to accept Mavis growing up and leaving the hotel. Now he has to accept that she might leave the hotel, go into the real world, and he has to let humans into his life, as well," she said.
Tartakovsky, whose television credits include cult hit "Dexter's Laboratory", "Samurai Jack", "Star Wars: Clone Wars" and "Sym-bionic Titan", said the sequel is more generational, while the first part dealt with the father-daughter relationship exclusively.
"The first one was just about Mavis and Drac, father and daughter, and now we've got grandson, great-grandfather, so it's really from one generation to the next," he said.
Talking about how Brooks came to be a part of the voice cast, Tartakovsky said they wanted someone who carried a lot of authority.
"For Drac's father we definitely wanted somebody who's a real bad-ass, who's almost like the original Dracula. But somebody who's very, very old. When we came up with Mel Brooks, it really just was fitting so nice, because he's a great comedian and Adam's a good comedian. They kind of complemented each other very well.
