While the Hotel Transylvania films have never received the overwhelming praise of other animated series like How to Train Your Dragon, the three-film franchise has still made a strong profit for Sony Pictures Animation. Now, it seems the latest entry was successful enough to warrant another follow-up.Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter revealed Columbia and Sony Pictures Animation are developing Hotel Transylvania 4. While there's been no formal announcement about the cast, it's likely the stars of the previous three films in the series (including Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher and Mel Brooks) will return for the new movie.RELATED: Hotel Transylvania 3 Proves the Franchise Still Has a Lot of Life LeftIt is unknown if Genndy Tartakovsk, who directed the earlier three films in the series, will return for the fourth installment.

As Kit points out, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is actually the most successful film Sony Pictures Animated has ever produced. The film earned over $528 million dollars at the global box office when it was released last year. Not even the newly minted Academy Award winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has earned that much, only racking up (a still very impressive) $359 million.

Hotel Transylvania 4 currently has a planned release date of Dec. 22, 2021.