Knowing is an upcoming 2009 action/thriller directed by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage. The project was originally attached to a number of directors under Columbia Pictures, but it was placed in turnaround and eventually picked up by Escape Artists.

Knowing movie poster

Production was financially backed by Summit Entertainment, which will also distribute the film. Knowing was filmed in Melbourne, Australia, using various locations to represent the film’s setting, Boston. The film is scheduled to be released on March 20, 2009.

In 1959, students of a newly opened elementary school are asked to draw pictures of what they envision the future to be. These pictures would be stored in a time capsule. One mysterious girl submits a sheet of paper filled with numbers.

Years later, Professor John Koestler (Cage) enrolls his son at that same elementary school. His son picks up the numbered sheet of paper and, without his teacher knowing, takes it home. Koestler decodes the numbers to find that it is a series of dates and casualty numbers. Every date listed that had passed was recorded to have a disaster occur, and Koestler predicts that the future dates are dates where more disasters will occur. He is soon proved correct when an airplane crashes into some powerlines and eighty-one people were reported to be killed–coincidently the same numbers on the sheet of paper. This leads Koestler to believe the world is ending, and that he and his son are somehow involved in the apocalypse.