In celebration of this year’s Academy Awards, the Queen’s Film Theatre (QFT) in Belfast hosted a special screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 hit film ‘The Godfather‘. The screening was in partnership with Jameson Irish Whiskey, and offered audiences the opportunity to relive, or experience for the first time, this Oscar-winning film on the big screen.

The Godfather, featuring an all-star cast headlined by Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, was a low-budget production which upon its initial release went on to take in close to $300,000,000 at the box office worldwide, as well as to win Academy Awards for Best Actor (Brando), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Drama.

Therefore, it was no surprise that the film was included in the QFT’s “series of special themed film experience events celebrating cult classics from a range of different genres“, or that Domino’s Pizza joined forces with the organisers to make this event more than just a typical trip to the cinema.

For this event, the QFT was transformed with a projected image of Brando in character hanging in the middle of the foyer. Audience members were treated to a special pre-show warm-up, during which they could pose with plastic top hats and novelty moustaches, but it wasn’t long before the film theatre was packed with eager fans waiting for the curtain to go up.

Only one woman admitted to being a first-time viewer of ‘The Godfather’, however, her admission garnered her nothing but envy from the speaker who introduced the film, while a prize raffle brought some extra entertainment value to the screening as various audience members won prizes ranging from tickets to future QFT/Jameson events, to a bottle of Jameson whiskey, and to a limited-edition artwork print of The Godfather, which was clearly the most sought-after item judging from the crowd’s disappointed groans when the winner was announced.

As for the film itself, there were no signs of fatigue or boredom from the dozens of people who had already seen the film countless times. In fact, iconic moments such as Hollywood producer Jack Woltz finding his horse’s decapitated head in bed with him received exactly the kind of mixed horror and amusement that one would have expected to hear from an audience during the film’s original theatrical run thirty-eight years ago.

It is a testament to the timelessness of this film that the audience was still engaged and responsive by the time the last scene faded to black well after 1a.m. The sold-out screening reflected the public’s eagerness to support the QFT and Belfast’s local film community, with the film’s introductory speaker noting that the QFT was the only film theatre in the city to offer screenings of ‘The Artist’ – a film widely tipped to win Best Picture at this weekend’s Academy Awards – and other critically-acclaimed films which often elude mainstream attention.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the night was that it managed to be such a success, especially at the price of £10 per ticket for a film which many can watch on DVD in the comfort of their own homes. Attendee Danielle Lavery put things into perspective by explaining that while she knew the film “inside-out”, there was something unique about viewing the film on the big-screen, the way it was originally intended and the way that The Godfather first made its indelible cultural mark on audiences around the world.

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In part two of the Cole Haddon interview, Cole goes into how he was able to put ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’ together, along with the many inspirations and influences he had when making the comic.

Toonari Post (TP): About your comic, ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’, your first issue was released in April 27 of 2011. Since then, you’ve released three other volumes, and now, in February, Dark Horse will be coming out with the four volume package. The one thing I was immediately impressed with was the artwork by M.S. Corley. How did you two come together for the project?

Cole Haddon (CH): M.S., I actually forgot what that stands for, but I know ‘M’ stands for Mike. At the time that the deal had been made and we were moving forward on ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’, my editor at the time, Dave Land, who has moved on from Dark Horse since then, sent me five or six really talented artists to consider, people who actually had name recognition. But a lot of it was, I don’t mean this as a slight, but it was the more conventional stuff.

There were a few that were a little out there, but for the most part, it was styles that I was familiar with. I knew from the start that I wanted ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’ to just look different, that when someone picked up the comic book to just immediately think that “this is something different, maybe I should pay attention to it.”

After going back and forth a little bit, they sent me Mike’s work, which I was immediately struck by because it didn’t look like other things that were out there. But he also didn’t have much of a history in comic books.

He had illustrated an eight-page story for Dark Horse Presents’ MySpace page. I believe that’s how it worked, which ironically enough involved Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Jack the Ripper, very odd, but a much more monstrous version of everything.

So it struck me as different and special, and we got on the phone and didn’t stop talking for like 90 minutes about how much we loved classic horror movies. Of course, that inspired ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’, and by the end, it just seemed clear Mike wanted to work on the research and figure out how to put on the page what I saw in my head.

I haven’t regretted the decision since. He’s done nothing, but amazing work and pushed himself every step of the way, even when there could have been easier ways of doing things. He consistently challenged the instincts that both of us had.

TP: At the point when Adye and Jekyll meet up with Newcomen in the Museum of Waxworks, that made me think of ‘The House of Wax’ with Vincent Price. What would you say your biggest influence for making this comic is?

CH: I think probably as an aesthetic storyteller, everything has come, for me, from film. Film has led me to every classic book I’ve ever read. It’s sort of the launching pad to my entire existence. Probably several years ago, upon seeing ‘Pulp Fiction’, it was the first time I realized that my natural instinct to mash things together, just because I thought it was cool, actually could work.

For instance, something that Tarantino has been doing ever since, is mashing together genres and films that have no business being in the same movie, but somehow works. I could only dream that I’m remotely effective as he is.

But that was really the launching point for combining a love of a lot of classic horror from Universal Pictures Monster movies of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, which had a huge impact on this series, to the Hammer Horrors to the ’50s, ’60s, and early ’70s before they went off the rails.

That had a huge impact. In fact, there is a Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee cameo in the series if you look very carefully. It was always the intention to draw inspiration to from the films that had such an impact on me as a child, to somehow reintroduce that feeling, that love of Gothic horror to a reader who might not be all that familiar with it.

The colorist, Jim Campbell, did some remarkable work, I think. He was probably chiefly responsible for invoking the feel of those Hammer films, in particular with the color pallet he chose. Contrast, saturated, and de-saturated colors between the upper-class and the lower-class to thematic colors for characters, the use of the brightest, most garish red we could come up with for blood that is never diluted by shadows or distance.

Blood, just like in all of the Hammer films, just has to scream at the audience. Even the ‘House of Wax’ reference is correct. Madame Tussauds is a real location.

Because the film goes hand-in-hand with the comic book, it was important that there were set pieces, major set pieces that people would recognize and would be exciting to see on the screen, and Madame Tussauds was one of those just for what it offered in terms of action, in terms of being able to actually have a visual representation of what the popular idea of what Hyde is.

There is also the fact that I love the Vincent Price ‘House of Wax’ and go all the way back to the Michael Curtiz’s ‘Mystery of the Wax Museum’, which is an old, two-color inspiration for the ‘House of Wax’.

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Recently, Toonari Post spoke with Cole Haddon, author of ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’. The comic, by Dark Horse, was a successful four volume series which has recently breached Hollywood and will become a full-length motion picture. Cole Haddon explained to us how he got his start and how he came up with the story behind ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’.

Toonari Post (TP): How did you start your current career?

Cole Haddon (CH): I moved out here to L. A. six years ago with the intention of breaking into the film business as a screenwriter. That took about three years with the help of friends I made, because I got representation and got some attention on some scripts I was working on. That led to reaching the comic book world to a meeting with Dark Horse Entertainment, and that’s how I became a comic book writer. But, for the screenplay stuff, that was just hard work and people eventually liking what I was doing, and it paid off.

TP: How long have you been focused on screenwriting, and then evolved to comics?

CH: As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a storyteller. I think I’ve just gone with that title as an umbrella for what I wanted to do, because I drifted between so many different mediums. When I was 13, I thought I was going to be a comic book writer, and I was also an illustrator.

So I was trying to break into the business just as the image boom was exploding around the country. But it took me forever to draw a comic book. Where other people do it quite naturally, I would have been spending two years to do two issues. But I enjoyed the stories so much and transitioned into screenwriting, and then went off to college where I then again transitioned into writing novels and short stories.

Until about 28 or so, I just realized film was where my heart had always been, and I was just running in circles around it, because I think in Michigan, where I’m from, you’re largely told that’s a dream for other people, that you should just go get a job at General Motor or if you get your degree and become an engineer, or a lawyer, or doctor, or something simple and easy and clearly lucrative.

So I ran from diving in for a long time, and I just gave up on running and got in the car and drove out here, and I’ve been here ever since. Very long and winding, and not at all a direct path, but I always knew that I wanted to be telling stories, and that, so far, looks like what I have to do.

TP: When you went into making the comic, was there anything specific you wanted to introduce into the comic world? What did you feel was missing and that you wanted to add in the comic book industry?

CH: I’ve been a comic book fan since I was probably eight and worked at comic book stores, and like I said, I thought I was going to work in the comic book industry from a very young age. That was mostly from the love of super hero comic books, and as I got older, though, I found I wanted more and more sophisticated stories, which weren’t always to be found in the super hero series.

So, I think when I finally got the opportunity to move into the medium, thanks to Dark Horse, I really wanted to use it as a means to explore themes that I wasn’t really allowed to touch in my screenwriting career.

In many ways, I call comic books my independent film because it pays like shit, but the satisfaction is through the roof. I control everything, and you get to create your own property, such as ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’.

So having that freedom to explore ideas, sometimes challenging ideas about society and religion and politics and many of these things that I found in the medium that I wanted to play with, and I didn’t necessarily see enough. There is much of it out there, but it’s stuff I had to look for. So when I finally got into it, I wanted to, at least, focus on that myself.

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