Director Andrew Dominik hits back after Blonde backlash

Andrew Dominik has hit back following criticism over the way Marilyn Monroe was portrayed in his film 'Blonde'.

The director has faced a backlash from Monroe fans following the release of the Netflix film - which stars Ana de Armas as the troubled movie star - but he's insisted the film "doesn't make any difference" to the late star's legacy.

Speaking at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, he said of US audiences' reaction to the film: "They hated the movie!"

According to The Hollywood Reporter, he added: "Now we're living in a time where it's important to present women as empowered, and they want to reinvent Marilyn Monroe as an empowered woman. That's what they want to see. And if you're not showing them that, it upsets them.

"Which is kind of strange, because she's dead. The movie doesn't make any difference in one way or another."

The film showed Monroe being exploited by various men in her life as well as depictions of traumas including rape and abortion, and Dominik feels audiences didn't like seeing Monroe being portrayed as a victim.

He added: "What they really mean is that the film exploited their memory of her, their image of her, which is fair enough. But that's the whole idea of the movie. It's trying to take the iconography of her life and put it into service of something else, it's trying to take things that you're familiar with, and turning the meaning inside out. But that's what they don't want to see."