9 Biggest Movies Coming Out In July 2018

Though critical reception has been mixed, the Hotel Transylvania movies have become a recent Halloween staple, and given their continued financial success another instalment was inevitable. However, moving out of their usual late-September slot to a prime July date is an odd move.

To be fair, its only main competition for animated movies that summer are The Incredibles 2 and the new Laika project, and Sony already have another Halloween kids' film scheduled with the sequel to Goosebumps, but it's still an odd choice.

Hotel Transylvania 3 will see Dracula and company take a cruise holiday, which should at least make for a change of scenery from the gloomy hotel environment, but it does have a vague stench of Chipwrecked reeking from it already. The film also apparently see Drac fall in love with the ship's captain Ericka, who is secretly the descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, making for a twist on the plot of the first film as Mavis and Jonathan are trying to stop his romance instead.

Say what you will about the franchise, but a third Hotel Transylvania is still a chance to watch legendary animation director Genndy Tartakovsky do his magic. His work creating Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars still stand as some of the best examples of the medium, and even when the material is weaker Tartakovsky's skill at using the vibrancy and imagination of animation to the fullest makes these films a visual treat at the very least.