Akkad continued to try to develop a sequel. Josh Stolberg, who also unsuccessfully proposed a "Hellraiser" crossover with Bobby Florsheim, pitched "Halloween: Bad Blood", which would have brought back Jamie Lloyd. A 2004 script from screenwriting duo Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton, titled "Halloween: Retribution", would have begun with Michael killing Busta Rhymes's character Freddie Harris and involved Laurie Strode's son John Tate and Sheriff Leigh Brackett plotting to kill Michael Myers in revenge for her death in the previous film; the film would have ended with Tate drowning Michael in a frozen lake but implying that he would take his place as a murderous killer. Also in 2004, a script from Matt Verne, entitled "Halloween: Asylum", had Michael Myers breaking free from death row. Another prospective screenplay written by Jake Wade Wall was "Halloween: The Missing Years", which would have been a prequel centered around Michael Myers returning to Smith's Grove Sanitarium in the early 1980s during the events of ', with flashbacks revealing details about his childhood at the asylum after murdering his sister in the 1960s. At the same time Moustapha Akkad and his son Malek were working on a story revolving around Dr. Wynn from '. Development on a direct sequel suddenly halted when Moustapha Akkad was killed in the 2005 Amman hotel bombings while attending a wedding in Jordan, and his son Malek decided to take the series in a different direction.