The Exorcist III and tells Karras to fight the Gemini. Karras regains his free will briefly and orders Kinderman to shoot him. He fires his revolver several times, hitting Karras in the chest, fatally wounding him and stopping the Gemini Killer. Kinderman puts his revolver against Karras' head and fires. William Peter Blatty, who wrote the original "Exorcist" novel and the screenplay for its film adaptation, initially had no desire to write a sequel. However, he eventually came up with a story titled "Legion", featuring Lieutenant Kinderman, a prominent character in the original "Exorcist" novel (though played a minor role in the eventual
The Exorcist III film), as the protagonist. Blatty conceived "Legion" as a feature film with William Friedkin, director of "The Exorcist", attached to direct. Despite the critical and commercial failure of the previous sequel, Warner Bros. was keen to proceed with Blatty and Friedkin's plans for another "Exorcist" film. Blatty said that "everybody wanted "Exorcist III"... I hadn't written the script, but I had the story in my head...and Billy [Friedkin] loved it." Friedkin, however, soon left the project due to conflicting opinions between him and Blatty on the film. The project went into development hell, and Blatty wrote "Legion" as a novel