character down and really study him, the Van Helsing of the Halloween series because Van Helsing was brought into the middle of a story he had no personal stake in." Brehmer likens Loomis to a personification of the Cassandra myth as Loomis is "someone who basically has a premonition" and "tries to warn everyone, and nobody listens, so exactly what he was trying to stop from happening just happens as scheduled." Casting Carpenter's first choice for the role of Dr. Loomis was Peter Cushing, famous for his roles in Hammer Horror films; however, as he had just been in the high-profile Star Wars, Cushing's agent rejected the offer out of hand due to the low salary. Christopher Lee was also approached for the role; he too turned it down, although the actor would later tell Carpenter and Hill that declining the role was the biggest mistake he made during his career. Producer Irwin Yablans then suggested Pleasence, who agreed to star because his daughter Lucy, a guitarist, had enjoyed Assault on Precinct 13 for Carpenter's score. Nancy Stephens reflected, "The thrill for me in the first Halloween was that I got to work with Donald Pleasence." Tony Moran, who briefly portrays Michael when his mask is removed, initially refused to do the film until learning that Pleasence was involved. While filming the final scene of the movie, where Michael is revealed to have disappeared after being shot by Loomis and falling off a balcony, Pleasence asked Carpenter if he should do an expression of surprise or an "I knew it'?" Carpenter, "too naive to know the right answer", asked Pleasence if he could do both, to which Pleasence complied. Halloween II was supposed to be the last film in the Halloween franchise to revolve around Michael Myers. After the 1982 release of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the lowest performing film in the series at the time, executive producer Moustapha Akkad wanted to make a sequel that brought back Michael Myers. On February 25, 1988, writer Alan B. McElroy, a Cleveland, Ohio native, was brought in to write the script for Halloween 4. McElroy wanted to open the film with Loomis being thrown from the explosion at the end of Halloween II as a way of explaining how he survived. This was vetoed by director Dwight H. Little, who "didn't want to get tied up with a lot of