Knowing (film)

Knowing
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Alex Proyas
Produced by	Todd Black Jason Blumenthal Steve Tisch
Screenplay by	Ryne Douglas Pearson Juliet Snowden Stiles White
Story by	Ryne Douglas Pearson
Starring	Nicolas Cage Rose Byrne Chandler Canterbury Lara Robinson
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Cinematography	Simon Duggan
Editing by	Richard Learoyd
Studio	Escape Artists
Distributed by	Summit Entertainment
Release date(s)	March 20, 2009 (2009-03-20)
Running time	121 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$187,858,642

Knowing is a 2009 American-British science fiction film 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. Production was financially backed by Summit Entertainment. Knowing was filmed in Docklands Studios Melbourne, Australia, using various locations to represent the film's Boston-area setting. The film was released on 20 March 2009, in the United States. The DVD and Blu-ray media were released on July 7, 2009.

Plot

In 1959, a child, Lucinda Embry, hears whispers as she stares at the sun. Later, she writes a page of seemingly random numbers to include in the school's time capsule, which will be opened after 50 years. When unable to complete this series of digits, she hides in the janitor's closet and is later found there by a teacher, scratching the remaining numbers into the door.

Fifty years later, Caleb Koestler is a student at Lucinda's school. When the time capsule is opened, Caleb gets Lucinda's page of numbers. Jonathan Koestler, Caleb's widower father, is a professor of astrophysics at MIT. Hearing whispers, Caleb sees a mysterious stranger outside. Looking at the numbers, Jonathan notices the sequence 911012996 and realizes it is a reference to the date and number of deaths from the September 11th attacks (9/11/01/2996). Jonathan finds similar information based on other numbers on Caleb's sheet. The last three dates on the page are in the near future, and there are sequences between the dates which he cannot understand.

Caleb receives more visits from mysterious strangers who give him a small smooth stone, and show him visions of the world on fire.

On his way to pick up Caleb from school, Jonathan notices the coordinates on his GPS, realizing that the numbers on the screen match those on Lucinda's list. His fears are realized moments later when a passenger jet crashes within view of the highway. He now understands that Lucinda's numbers pinpoint the time and place of disasters.

Jonathan tracks down Lucinda's daughter, Diana, and her daughter Abby, but scares them away when he reveals his interest in Lucinda's predictions. Jonathan pinpoints the next disaster to Worth Street in lower Manhattan. Guessing that it will be a terrorist attack and hoping to prevent the disaster, he phones in a terror warning. Traveling to New York, he is shocked to find the area has not been not closed off. He pursues a man into a subway station suspecting him to be a terrorist, but he is only a shoplifter. At that same moment an approaching train derails, smashing into the station and destroys much of the train Jonathan is on.

Copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision" (1670)

With the train disaster proving Jonathan's predictions, Diana decides to help Jonathan. She says that her mother used to hear voices, and that the next date, October 19, is the day she said she would die.

In Lucinda's mobile home, they find pictures of the disasters she predicted, a copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision", and a pile of small smooth stones near Lucinda's bed.

The last number appears to be "33" but is really "EE" written backwards. Jonathan and Diana soon learn that EE means "Everyone Else", representing a cataclysm that no one will escape.

Outside, the Strangers appear around the car carrying the children. John drives them away only to hear from Abby that the "whisper people" want her and Caleb to go with them.

The next day, John has a sudden revelation and rushes them to the MIT observatory, where he discovers that a massive solar flare will soon reach Earth.

Diana wants to hide in some caves. John agrees at first, but then returns to Lucinda's school for the numbers on the old door, thinking they may be coordinates leading to safety. Before he finds them Diana takes the children and heads for the caves. As Jonathan drives after them, he calls Diana and tries to persuade her against relying on the caves. He warns her that the solar flare will penetrate miles under ground.

While stopped for gas, Diana loses the children to the Strangers. Diana pursues them but is broadsided by a truck. John arrives just as Diana dies, finding the small stone in Diana's hand. He continues to Lucinda's mobile home, finding the children and the Strangers in a dry river bed covered with the stones. A vessel similar to the wheels in the engraving descends from the sky. As John is refused entry he lets his son leave, as the Strangers dissolve into translucent alien figures resembling angels.

The vessel departs with the children and a pair of rabbits, and a distant shot shows many similar vessels leaving earth. The next morning the skies are full of smoke and heat. John makes it to the chaotic streets of New York City, arriving at his father's home. They embrace as the solar flare burns away the atmosphere and incinerates the surface of the Earth.

The film ends as Caleb and Abby arrive at an otherworldly valley, then run across a field of golden grass towards a large, white tree.

Cast

• Nicolas Cage as Professor Jonathan "John" Koestler
• Rose Byrne as Diana Wayland / Lucinda Embry-Wayland
• Chandler Canterbury as Caleb Koestler
• Lara Robinson as Lucinda Embry / Abby Wayland / Young Diana Wayland
• Nadia Townsend as Grace Koestler
• Ben Mendelsohn as Professor Phil Beckman
• Alan Hopgood as Reverend Koestler
• Adrienne Pickering as Allison Koestler
• Liam Hemsworth as Spencer
• D.G. Maloney, Joel Bow, Maximillian Paul, and Karen Hadfield as The Strangers
• Alethea McGrath as Miss Taylor in 2009
• Danielle Carter as Miss Taylor in 1959

Production

In 2001, novelist Ryne Douglas Pearson approached producers Todd Black and Jason Blumenthal with his idea for a film, where a time capsule from the 1950s is opened revealing fulfilled prophecies, the last one of which ended with 'EE' - "everyone else". The producers liked the concept and bought his script. was originally written by Pearson and the project was set up at Columbia Pictures. Both Rod Lurie and Richard Kelly were attached as directors, but the film eventually went into turnaround. The project was picked up by the production company Escape Artists, and the script was rewritten by Stiles White and Juliet Snowden. Director Alex Proyas was attached to direct the project in February 2005. Proyas said the aspect that attracted him the most was the "very different script" and the notion of people seeing the future and "how it shape their lives". Summit Entertainment took on the responsibility to fully finance and distribute the film. Proyas and Stuart Hazeldine rewrote the draft for production, which began on 25 March 2008 in Melbourne, Australia. The director hoped to emulate The Exorcist in melding "realism with a fantastical premise".

The film is set primarily in the town of Lexington with some scenes set in the nearby cities of Cambridge and Boston. However, it was shot in Australia, where director Proyas resides. Locations included the Geelong Ring Road, the Melbourne Museum, Mount Macedon and Collins Street. Filming also took place at Camberwell High School, which was converted into the fictional William Dawes Elementary, located in 1959 Lexington. Interior shots took place at the Australian Synchrotron to represent an observatory. Filming also took place at the Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. In addition to practical locations, filming also took place at the Melbourne Central City Studios in Docklands. The plane crash, which was mostly shown in one take in the film, was done in a nearly-finished freeway outside Melbourne, mixing practical effects and pieces of a plane with computer-generated elements. The scenographic rain led to the usage of a new gel for the flames so the fire would not be put out, and semi-permanent make-up to make them last the long shooting hours.

Proyas used a Red One digital camera, making the film the first time the director used digital cameras. He sought to capture a gritty and realistic look to the film, and his approach involved a continuous two-minute scene in which Cage's character sees a plane crash and attempts to rescue passengers. The scene was an arduous task, taking two days to set up and two days to shoot. Proyas explained the goal, "I did that specifically to not let the artifice of visual effects and all the cuts and stuff we can do, get in the way of the emotion of the scene."

Soundtrack

The music for the film was written by Marco Beltrami, but also features classical works such as Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven), which is played without any accompanying sound effects in the final Boston disaster scene of the film. Beltrami released the soundtrack as a CD with 22 tracks.

Knowing
Soundtrack album by Marco Beltrami
Released	March 24, 2009 (2009-03-24)
Genre	Film score
Length	65:39
Label	Varese Sarabande

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Main Titles"	2:11
2.	"Door Jam"	3:10
3.	"EMT"	2:19
4.	"John and Caleb"	1:59
5.	"New York"	4:12
6.	"Aftermath"	1:46
7.	"Not a Kid Anymore"	1:56
8.	"Moose on the Loose"	2:20
9.	"Stalking the Waylands"	1:24
10.	"Numerology"	3:06
11.	"It's the Sun"	2:44
12.	"John Spills"	3:26
13.	"Trailer Music"	3:21
14.	"33"	3:29
15.	"Loudmouth"	2:43
16.	"Revelations"	3:29
17.	"Thataway!"	2:06
18.	"Shock and Aww"	4:00
19.	"Caleb Leaves"	7:09
20.	"Roll Over Beethoven"	4:15
21.	"New World Round"	2:59
22.	"Who Wants an Apple?"	1:35
Total length:		65:39

Music in the film but not released on the soundtrack

• The Planets: Op. 43: IV Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity - written by Gustav Holst
• News Theme - written and performed by Guy Gross
• Beethoven Symphony No. 7 In A Major, Op. 92, in (1811-1812) - composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and performed by Sydney Scoring Orchestra

Reception

Knowing received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 34% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based upon a sample of 176 critics with an average score of 4.7 out of 10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 41 out of 100 based on 27 reviews. The consensus observed that Knowing had "some interesting ideas and a couple of good scenes"

A. O. Scott of The New York Times said, "If your intention is to make a brooding, hauntingly allegorical terror-thriller, it’s probably not a good sign when spectacles of mass death and intimations of planetary destruction are met with hoots and giggles ... The Heart-throbbing spectacular two hours of Knowing will make you long for more, even as you worry that there will not be time for all your questions to be answered." In the San Francisco Chronicle, Peter Hartlaub called the film "an excitement for fans of Proyas" and "a surprisingly messy effort." He thought Nicolas Cage "borders on extremely talented here, in part because of a script that gives him much to do and freak out or act depressed".

Writing for The Washington Post, Michael O'Sullivan thought the film was "creepy, at least for the first two-thirds or so, in a moderately satisfying, if predictable, way ... But the narrative corner into which this movie... paints itself is a simultaneously brilliant and exciting one. Well before the film neared its by turns dismal and ditzy conclusion, I found myself knowing—yet hardly able to believe—what was about to happen." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times found it to be "moody and sometimes ideologically provocative" and added, "Knowing has its grim moments—and by that I mean the sort of cringe- (or laugh-) inducing lines of dialogue that have haunted disaster films through the ages ... So visually arresting are the images that watching a deconstructing airliner or subway train becomes more mesmerising than horrifying."

Roger Ebert was enthusiastic about the film, rating it four stars and saying, "Knowing is among the best science-fiction films I've seen—frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome " in the Chicago Sun-Times. He continued, "With expert and confident storytelling, Proyas strings together events that keep tension at a high pitch all through the film. Even a few quiet, human moments have something coiling beneath. Pluck this movie, and it vibrates." Peter Bradshaw reviewed the film for The Guardian and suggested Knowing was saved by its ending, concluding that "the film sticks to its apocalyptic guns with a spectacular and thoroughly unexpected finish." Philip French's review in The Observer suggested the premise was "intriguing B-feature apocalypse, determinism versus free-will stuff" and that the ending has something for everyone: "A chosen few will apparently be swept away by angels to a better place. If you're a Christian fundamentalist who believes that Armageddon is nigh, you'll have a family hug and wake up to be greeted by St Peter at the Pearly Gates. On the other hand, Darwinists will be gratified to see Gaia and her stellar opposite numbers sock it to an unconcerned mankind."

Box office

Knowing was released in 3,332 theatres in the United States and Canada on 20 March 2009 and grossed $24,604,751 in its opening weekend, placing first at the box office. According to exit polling, 63% of the audience was 25 years old and up and evenly split between genders. On the weekend of 17 March 2009, Knowing ranked first in the international box office, grossing $9.8 million at 1,711 theatres in ten markets, including first with $3.55 million in the United Kingdom. As of 26 July 2009, the film had grossed $79,957,634 in the United States and Canada and $107,901,008 in other territories for a worldwide total of $187,858,642.

Home media release

Knowing was released on DVD on 7 July 2009 opening at No.1 for the week, selling 773,000 DVD units for $12,508,192 in revenue. As per the latest figures, 1,521,797 DVD units have been sold, bringing in $22,968,367 in revenue. This does not include DVD/Blu-rentals or Blu-ray sales.

External links

• Official website
• Knowing at the Internet Movie Database
• Knowing at Rotten Tomatoes
• Knowing at Metacritic
• Knowing at Box Office Mojo
• Knowing at AllRovi