I spent today in the Indigo Ballroom, which I believe is the third biggest room at Comic-Con.  It was at about half capacity all day until the 3:00 panel for Hotel Transylvania.  I guess the monsters in the movie are technically geek-friendly, but I don’t think a kids movie like this would fill up the room if it weren’t for one man: Genndy Tartakovsky.  Tartakovsky earned respect the creator of such fine animated series as Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars—sure enough, most of the fans focused on those properties during the Q&A session, paying particular attention to a Samurai Jack movie.  Yet Tartakovsky’s unique style was on full display in the copious footage they showed from Hotel Transylvania, which as a result looks very funny.  Hit the jump for a recap of the panel.

Last week, Collider was invited to participate in an early footage preview for the Sony Pictures Animation film Hotel Transylvania, opening in theaters on September 28^th. Set in Dracula’s (Adam Sandler) lavish resort where monsters and their families can be free to be who they are without humans to bother them, the story follows his beloved daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez), who longs to explore the world on her 118^th birthday. But, things are drastically shaken up when a human guy (Andy Samberg) stumbles into the hotel and takes an immediate shine to Mavis.

After getting to see a series of scenes from the film, which looks to be both funny and heartfelt, and showcased some of the wacky and wild legendary monsters featured in it, we got the opportunity to speak with producer Michelle Murdocca for this exclusive interview about what makes this monster story different, how they kept the family tone, what made Selena Gomez the right actress to bring their heroine Mavis to life, working with Adam Sandler to develop the voice for Dracula, and what it is about animation that has drawn her to the medium, as a producer. Check out what she had to say after the jump.