Mavis (Selena Gomez) and Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) in Columbia/Sony’s “Hotel Transylvania 2.” (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Animation)
WELCOME TO the “Hotel Transylvania.” To spin the grizzled Eagles tune: You can check it out any time you like — and it’s a franchise we can’t seem to leave.
The sequel broke the record of the original film as “Hotel Transylvania 2″ had the biggest September opening ever over the weekend, grossing $47.5 million at the domestic box office, according to studio estimates Sunday. That tops the $42.5 million haul for “Hotel Transylvania” in 2012, when the animated franchise’s leading voice, Adam Sandler, hadn’t yet weathered a dismal box-office run of washouts and audience rejections.
The weekend win is also welcome news for Sony, which — speaking of washouts — had endured such 2015 disappointments as Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha” and Sandler’s summer “Pixels.”
While “Hotel Transylvania 2″ has scored only a 43 on Metacritic, director Genndy Tartakovsky’s Halloween-season hit knows its audience, rating a crowd-sourced A-minus on CinemaScore — the same grade as its predecessor.
That bodes especially well for a third Transylvanian outing to be greenlit before the second film even finishes raking in the millions. The 2012 original grossed nearly $360 million worldwide.
“Hotel Transylvania 2″ features a wealth of Sandler’s fellow “Saturday Night Live” alumni, including co-writer/executive producer Robert Smigel and the voices of Andy Samberg, David Spade, Molly Shannon and Jon Lovitz, as well as Sandler regular Kevin James.
In a strong box-office weekend, Nancy Meyers’s “The Intern” ($18.2 million) was second, followed by last week’s champ, “Maze Runner: The Scorch Chronicles” ($14 million), the IMAX-friendly “Everest” ($13.1 million) and “Black Mass” ($11.5 million.)
FUN WITH NUMBERS
* Pixar’s “Inside Out” has now grossed $353.5 million domestically, passing “Furious 7″ ($351 million) to become the third-biggest film of the year in the North American market.
* Meanwhile, Universal’s “Furious 7″ ($1.511 billion) is gaining fast on “The Avengers” ($1.519 billion), gunning to unseat the 2012 Disney film and become the fourth-biggest film ever in global box office. In the No. 6 slot is the sequel, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” ($1.4 billion).
* Another smash sequel from Universal, “Minions” ($1.119 billion), is now the 12th-biggest film ever in global box office (not adjusted for inflation), and is poised to pass both “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” to move into the top 10.
* The top six films this year — and 10 of the top 12 — are from just two companies: Disney and Universal.
Cr : Michael Cavna - The Washington Post
