Selena Gomez Has A Larger Role In Hotel Transylvania 4, On & Off Screen

According to the film’s directors, Selena Gomez has a more prominent role in Hotel Transylvania 4, on and off-screen. As one of the most famous multi-talented stars alive today, Gomez originally got her start on the children’s series Barney & Friends before rising to stardom on Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place. Alongside her television career, Gomez has starred in the raunchy A24 film Spring Breakers, Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York, and lends her voice to Mavis in the Hotel Transylvania franchise. Gomez also gained prominence as a producer on the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why.

Gomez’s next feature film project will be Hotel Transylvania 4, officially titled Transformania. Gomez has voiced Mavis in all three Hotel Transylvania films since 2012, though this will be the first she has also executively produced. The franchise’s 2018 installment, subtitled Summer Vacation, was arguably the most popular in the series, and a fourth installment was announced in 2019. However, series creator Todd Durham and director Genndy Tartakovsky have stepped out of their original roles. Instead, Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska will direct the forthcoming final installment of the franchise.

In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Hotel Transylvania 4 directors Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska spoke about Selena Gomez’s importance to the project. Gomez is stepping into a more significant role for this film as a producer, but her character Mavis will be featured more prominently as well. Here’s what Kluska had to say about Gomez’s role on and off-screen:

Mavis really has a much bigger role in this movie, so very early on, we were sharing drafts with Selena as well as some early artwork and board pitches. We were really being conscious of the fact that, more so even than what’s in the trailer, Mavis really becomes the character who is driving the solution. She ends up with information the other characters don’t have in the second and third act to bring her husband and her father back to who they should be. And Selena really embraced taking Mavis to that next level and seeing what lengths this character could go to in this movie, which was great.

Though much of the Hotel Transylvania cast from the previous film will be returning alongside Gomez for the final installment, Adam Sandler is one notable exception. It’s unclear why he bowed out, but voice actor Brian Hull will replace Sandler. Nevertheless, Hotel Transylvania 4 still boasts a star-studded voice cast that includes Kathryn Hahn, Andy Samberg, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, David Spade, Molly Shannon, and Jim Gaffigan.

Gomez’s first credit as a producer came in 2013 on a Wizards of Waverly Place TV movie and has since shown she is a capable producer on 13 Reasons Why and her HBO Max series, Selena + Chef. Now, directors are looking for her input during the development of a major franchise film. Like many tent-poles as of late, Hotel Transylvania 4’s release date has been pushed back numerous times and is currently slated to hit theaters on July 23.

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Adam Bentz
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Adam Bentz is a movie and TV news writer for Screen Rant. From a young age, Adam has been interested in a wide range of movies and television, but it was talented auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Aaron Sorkin who ultimately sparked his interest in the craft. Motivated by his love for the screen, Adam studied creative writing with a concentration in screenwriting at Southern New Hampshire University.

After graduating, Adam interned as a writer with The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization working to end extreme poverty. Other than writing for Screen Rant, Adam reviews films on his website adambentz.wordpress.com

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