Knowing
Short description
Knowing is a 2009 science fiction thriller directed by Alex Proyas. It follows John Koestler, a widowed astrophysics professor whose young son Caleb attends an elementary school where a time capsule buried decades earlier is unearthed. Most children receive drawings from the past, but Caleb takes home a page filled with rows of numbers instead. As John studies the sequence, he becomes convinced it records the dates of major disasters, some already past and others still to come. His search for answers leads him to Diana Wayland, whose mother was the girl who wrote the numbers, and to the possibility that his own family is bound up in what happens next.
The film stars Nicolas Cage as John, with Rose Byrne as Diana, Chandler Canterbury as Caleb, and Ben Mendelsohn among the supporting cast. It was written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden and Stiles White, and produced by Steve Tisch, Todd Black and Proyas. It sits between I, Robot and Gods of Egypt in Proyas's filmography, his fifth directed feature.
Made for about 50 million dollars, Knowing took in roughly 155 million worldwide, a solid return. Audiences are lukewarm on it: it holds a 6.2 rating on IMDb from around 261,000 votes and a 6.3 on TMDB from far fewer. A critics' score of 4.9 out of 10 puts professional opinion below the general audience response.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film's screenplay was written by Ryan Pearson, after which Columbia Pictures took over the project. Rod Lurie and Richard Kelly were appointed as directors, but later the film rights were sold. The project was picked up by Escape Artists, and Stiles White and Juliet Snowden rewrote the script. In February 2005, Alex Proyas was appointed director of the film.
- The film takes place in Boston, and to recreate the city, the film crew used Australian locations such as Geelong Ring Road, the Melbourne Museum, Mount Macedon, and Collins Street. Filming also took place at Camberwell High School, which was transformed into the William Dawes Elementary School in Boston for the film.
- The Australian Synchrotron and the Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts, were used for filming inside the observatory.
- Throughout his career in filmmaking, Alex Proyas used the Red One digital camera for the first time.
- The second part of Ludwig van Beethoven's 7th Symphony sounds at the end of the film.
- At the very beginning of the film, there's a small continuity error: in the classroom where the children are sitting, flags of various countries are depicted on the boards. Among them is the flag of the Russian Federation (the fifth flag from the left). Considering that the action takes place in 1959, it should have been the flag of the USSR instead.
- When John decides to re-arrange 91101, magnets run across the board, previously erased text appears, and the inscription itself changes.
- After John leaves the gas station and finds himself in the forest, the tailgate of his pickup truck suddenly reappears, one he had recently lost somewhere.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
