I agree - he has always done that, but it seemed he went out of the way to praise the director’s re-write, and I faintly remember there was some stories in the media of King telling people and news outlets not to give away the ending.
It wouldn’t have sucked so bad if the story (from Skeleton Crew) was one of, if not my favorite, story of his. I was thrilled when I heard they were making a movie of it. The ending of the story, I thought, was perfect and defined “hope”.
However, the movie tosses that out the window with the ending.
That was the third King movie that director had made, maybe he really did like it. Maybe King’s idea of what his ending meant is different than yours, or maybe he was just in a worse mood and didn’t feel like defining hope anymore. But the book still exists.