First Look at Nicolas Cage in Alex Proyas' "Knowing"

I’m not sure if Nicolas Cage ever met a script he didn’t like. Some of his recent film choices would seem to imply that he doesn’t even bother to read the scripts before actually signing up for the movies. Lord knows his acting doesn’t really take a lot of prep work.

However, I actually think the film he’s making now, Knowing, has a shot at being a decent flick. Alex Proyas is directing the film. Proyas most recently directed I, Robot which a lot of people didn’t care for, I guess, but I thought was pretty decent. He also, and more importantly directed The Crow and Dark City. Dark City, especially, showed some incredible visionary promise that Proyas is still trying to live up to and is an essential “must see” film for any true film geek.

USA Today provides us with our first look at some of the images from the film.

The plot of the film is as follows: In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one of the students, a mysterious girl who seems to hear whispered voices, fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.

Fast forward 50 years to the present: A new generation of students examines the contents of the time capsule and the girl’s cryptic message ends up in the hands of young CALEB MYLES. But it is Caleb’s father, professor TED MYLES (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As Ted further unravels the document’s secrets, he realizes it foretells three additional events—the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve Ted and his son. When Ted’s attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

This gripping supernatural thriller charts one man’s faltering steps towards belief in the ultimate order of the universe even as he finds himself surrounded by mounting chaos. With the reluctant help of DIANA WHELAN (Rose Byrne) and ABBY, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the cryptic prophecies, Ted’s increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster—and the ultimate sacrifice.

Knowing is set to hit theaters on March 20th 2009.