Producer dies after Jordan blast
BBC News BBC News news online world uk international foreign british online service
Akkad's daughter Rima Akkad Monla was killed in the blasts

The executive producer of the Halloween films has died from injuries sustained in the Jordan hotel bomb attacks, which killed at least 56 people.

Moustapha Akkad, who was also a director, had been staying in one of the three hotels hit by suicide bombers in Amman on Wednesday.

Arab TV stations reported that Akkad died in hospital on Friday.

He produced all eight Halloween movies and directed English-language film The Message, about the Prophet Muhammad.

His daughter Rima Akkad Monla, 34, died in the explosion, her mother said.

The American national, who lived in Lebanon, had travelled to Amman to attend a wedding.

Halloween, released in 1978 and directed by John Carpenter, regularly features in all-time great horror movie lists.

Filming challenge

The film spawned seven sequels, the most recent of which, Halloween: Resurrection, was released in 2002.

The Message, Akkad's 1976 film about early Islam, saw Anthony Quinn play the Prophet's uncle Hamza.

Akkad faced a challenge in shooting a movie where viewers neither see nor hear the main character because of Islam's ban on images of Muhammad.

Born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1935, Akkad also directed the 1981 film Lion of the Desert, in which Quinn starred as Libyan anti-colonial fighter Omar Mukhtar.

He was also executive producer for the thrillers Free Ride and Appointment with Fear in the mid-1980s.