Warning! Minor spoilers for Hotel Transylvania: Transformania ahead.
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania was announced to be the last installment of the Hotel Transylvania franchise before its release on January 14, but there may be room for a potential Hotel Transylvania 5 to happen. Nothing has been confirmed yet on the matter, but it may still be early, especially considering the ordeal of actually releasing the movie. Hotel Transylvania 4 was indeed supposed to hit the screens in December 2021, but it ended up being released only on Amazon Prime Video after Amazon Studios struck a deal with Sony to make it available for the streaming platform.
Hotel Transylvania 4’s release date was moved up twice and rescheduled once because of the rise of Covid-19 cases, before its theatrical release was indefinitely canceled in August 2021, as the Amazon Studios deal was in the making. Still, the fourth installment of the Hotel Transylvania franchise was not made available to stream everywhere, and Sony still plans to eventually release it theatrically in China, where at the moment it’s unavailable. The uncertainty caused by pandemic regarding both the making of the movie, as production had to work remotely, and its release ended up extending the time that passed between Hotel Transylvania 3 and 4, so that also might have influenced the reason why there aren’t talks about Hotel Transylvania 5 yet.
Additionally, some changes were announced for Hotel Transylvania 4 - namely Adam Sandler not returning to voice Dracula and Genndy Tartakovsky not returning to direct the movie, which was instead directed by Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska. Although Hotel Transylvania 4 was marketed as the final movie of the franchise and the ending wrapped up its main characters' storylines nicely, the same could be said about the previous installments, as all movies in the franchise worked as stand-alone films that could be watched without watching the previous ones, suggesting a fifth movie would potentially still be possible for the franchise. Here's everything we know about Hotel Transylvania 5.
Will Hotel Transylvania 5 Happen?
As Hotel Transylvania 4 was revealed to be the franchise's final film, it's unlikely that Hotel Transylvania 5 will happen in the near future. Still, profitable franchises can rarely be considered concluded, as it could be seen with the many Disney live-actions or sequels, and even with the remake of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings set to be released by Amazon in 2022. Additionally, Hotel Transylvania 4 leaves some room for the future to potentially reprise its characters' stories, and it also proved that if a sequel were to lack its main stars, they could simply be re-casted, as it happened to Adam Sandler's "Drac" that was voiced by Brian Hull in Hotel Transylvania 4.
Hotel Transylvania 5 Story: Does Transformania Setup A Sequel?
By starting Hotel Transylvania 4 with Count Dracula, Mavis (Selena Gomez), Jonathan (Andy Samberg), and their friends celebrating the hotel's 125th anniversary, along with Drac's surprise announcement that he planned to retire and give the hotel to his daughter Mavis and her human husband Johnny, Hotel Transylvania 4 set up a passing of the baton between generations. Indeed, by showing in its last scenes how the hotel had been reconstructed after being torn down by the guinea pig of Professor Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan), Hotel Transylvania 4 might have avoided any possible cliffhanger ending. Still, considering the many changes made to the hotel by Johnny and Mavis that could be seen at the end, Hotel Transylvania 5 could easily focus on those and make it an entertaining story, especially if Drac were to oppose them but was nevertheless outside the hotel business.
Hotel Transylvania 5 Release Date Prediction
As there is no announcement on a potential fifth installment of the Hotel Transylvania franchise, it's unlikely that would be soon. Still, any previous Hotel Transylvania movie was released roughly 3 to 4 years after its announcement. If Sony were to backtrack later in the year and decide that they would like to reprise the franchise's beloved monsters and humans' stories in Hotel Transylvania 5, it would probably be released following the same timeframe of 3 years, therefore in 2025 at its earliest.