Mysterious code

In the celebration of the completion of a primary school, children placed their own drawings into a historical time capsule which was then buried under the foundation. Among them, a mysterious-looking little girl wrote rows of seemingly irregular numbers on her drawing. Years later, a group of students discovered and opened these sealed capsules. The mysterious little girl's drawing ended up in the hands of a boy named Callib Kosler (played by Chandler Canterbury). This drawing caught the attention of Callib's father, Professor Kosler (played by Nicolas Cage). Professor Kosler found that the numbers on the drawing precisely recorded the dates of major disasters that had occurred over the past years. More astonishingly, it also documented three upcoming disaster events, with the last one being a global catastrophe. Both he and his son would be drawn into this event. Professor Kosler tried to resolve the impending crisis through official channels, but others thought he was overly anxious. He could only choose to fight alone. With the help of Diana Wielan (played by Rose Byrne) and her daughter Abby Wielan (played by Lara Robinson), Professor Kosler continuously raced against time until they had to face the ultimate disaster and sacrifice.

"Knowing" is a new sci-fi film featuring Hollywood star Nicolas Cage. Notably, two years ago, a similar genre film he starred in, "Next," suffered a terrible defeat. However, this film's Egyptian director, Alex Proyas, gave him strong confidence. Proyas had previously directed the excellent sci-fi action film "I, Robot," which also performed well at the box office. This comeback did not disappoint audiences; the film grossed millions in its opening week and outperformed the romantic comedy "Duplicity," starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. In the sluggish spring season, this result was satisfactory and made critics' dissatisfaction less sharp.

"Knowing" was originally a Columbia Pictures project. Novelist Ryan Pearson wrote the screenplay, with directors Rod Lari and Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko") initially attached, but for various reasons, the shooting plan was shelved until the production company restarted the project. The more powerful Summit Entertainment, which gained industry attention last fall and winter for distributing the hit movie "Twilight," took charge of funding and overall distribution. After taking over, the company brought in Stiles White and Julius Norton to rewrite the script, and the directing role went to Alex Proyas. Proyas hoped that this film would reach the height of realism combined with fantasy as seen in "The Exorcist." Although the story takes place in Boston, most of the filming locations were in Australia, including Geelong Ring Road, Melbourne Museum, Macedon Ranges, and Collins Street. Additionally, scenes were shot at John Adam Primary School (originally established as Camberwell Grammar School in England after 1948), Hastyck Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts, USA, and the Australian Synchrotron. For the astronomical observation scenes in the film, Proyas used digital cameras during filming, marking a significant shift. He aimed to give the film a realistic and severe style, such as using a long shot lasting minutes to capture Nicolas Cage trying to save passengers who just survived a plane crash. The shooting process was arduous, and the director hoped to enhance the expressiveness of the lens, making the audience empathize deeply.