Naomi Watts on headlining Goodnight Mommy: 'It was not an easy process'

The original 2014 movie had become a cult classic, and was selected as the Austrian entry for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards.

A still from Goodnight Mommy/Twitter

Naomi Watts was a little hesitant to feature in the remake of the Austrian psychological thriller Goodnight Mommy. A sort of cult reputation was obtained for the 2014 movie by directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala about twin boys who begin to wonder if their mother, who is draped in surgical bandages, is not their mother.

Because of its reputation, it was both the ideal choice for an English-language remake and one that caused everyone to worry about what may happen if they botched it up. “The original, to me, is a pretty perfect film in my book,” Watts said. “Why would we do another one?”

The director, Matt Sobel, decided against performing a shot-for-shot reproduction, nevertheless. He had another idea, sort of a reworking that would accentuate specific details in the story. Right now, you can see their version of Goodnight Mommy on Prime Video.

People are too lazy to read subtitles, therefore I'm not a fan of just remakes, Sobel stated. “I would always emphasise that our story should imply something special, akin to how a remount of The Taming of the Shrew with the genders reversed implies something distinct.”

Sobel added, “I would love to invite people who do not think they would like horror films to watch our film.”

To play the twins, Elias and Lukas, the filmmakers decided on Cameron Crovetti and Nicholas Crovetti, the 14-year-old identical twin brothers who played Nicole Kidman's sons in Big Little Lies. The Crovettis were excited about the project. They remembered seeing and being scared by the trailer for the original.

“We used to be really obsessed with horror films,” said Nicholas Crovetti, who plays Lukas. "I mean we still are."

When the young actors were prepared to shoot the final sequences, Sobel decided to withhold the major twist from them. He recalls that when he and author Kyle Warren informed them of what would transpire, it was an awful time for everyone. They used a script that ended on page 85 and said "to be continued" for the majority of the production, according to Sobel. “I recall how astonished we all were at the time at how emotional that was for them!”

Watts, who most recently featured in the Netflix movie Penguin Bloom, will next star in Lakewood and the thriller Infinite Storm.

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