'Halloween Ends' Director Defends Movie Against Fan 'Backlash': I Made It My 'Own'

The director of Halloween Ends is defending his decision to go in a different direction.

David Gordon Green — who directed this year's third film in the most recent Jamie Lee Curtis-starring Halloween trilogy, as well as its 2018 and 2021 predecessors — was recently asked by Moviemaker.com how he responds to negative feedback for the movie.

"It's funny, when someone says, 'Build your dream house on this real estate using this title and these characters,' everybody is going to find a different little thing that's meaningful for them and they'll make it their own. That's what I did," said Green, 47.

Halloween Ends, which was released in theaters and simultaneously on Peacock Oct. 14, currently holds a 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an Audience Score of 57%, and has been met with criticism by many fans for its unique direction. The slasher has made more than $82 million at the global box office to date, according to Box Office Mojo.

"For every bite of backlash, you also get people that are thanking you for taking it to a new place and keeping it alive and full of love," Green told Moviemaker.com.

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Halloween Ends follows 2018's Halloween (the direct sequel to John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic) and 2021's Halloween Kills.

In the final film in the threequel, murderous maniac Michael Myers makes his way back to suburban Haddonfield, Illinois, once more to cause havoc in the town after he "disappeared without a trace" in the wake of the events that unfolded four years prior.

Final girl Laurie Strode (Curtis, 63) musters up the courage to go face-to-face — well, face-to-mask — with Michael one last time in an attempt to confront the embodiment of evil once and for all. But the road to their meeting isn't quite what one might expect.

"We had to decide how we wanted to wrap up these characters," Green told Moviemaker.com. "How do we want to make it not just a nice, neat bow on a franchise?"

"Honestly, we never once considered making a Laurie and Michael movie," he added with a laugh. "The concept that it should be a final showdown-type brawl never even crossed our minds."

One integral ingredient in the new movie? The character of Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a babysitter who faces an unthinkable tragedy that kicks off a complex and sinister storyline for him throughout the remainder of the film.

"When David offered me the role he was like, 'I need you to know that a lot of people are going to really, really, really not be happy with what we're choosing to do here. You'll probably hear a lot of that,' " Campbell, 25, recently told Variety. "Jamie reached out and said the same thing."

He went on to say that he thinks Halloween Ends "feels like the most David Gordon Green movie ever made," adding, "When you sit with certain audiences, they either get it right away or they're halfway through the movie and you can audibly hear them being like, 'What is the tone of this?' and not giving themselves permission to dive into the humor or bizarreness."

Halloween Ends is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.