Director Alex Proyas' 2009 science fiction thriller KNOWING casts Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne as an ill-fated pair who must learn to work together to solve a numerological mystery that predicts the end of the world. Cage plays Jonathan Koestler, an MIT astrophysicist who realizes that a strange document pulled from his son's elementary school time capsule is actually a timeline of world disasters that have unfolded since 1958 and that a precious few days remain before the last scheduled catastrophe kills everyone on earth.

Nicolas Cage is no stranger to movies about code breaking, so his performance in KNOWING leads his fans straight back to his work in National Treasure (2004) in which Cage plays an archaeologist who believes there is a treasure map imprinted upon the Declaration of Independence and again in National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007). Cage takes on the doomsday document found inside a time capsule and spends much of the film KNOWING trying to solve the numerical mystery and outrun the world's fate.

KNOWING director Alex Proyas' artful depiction of the end of the world is very much in keeping with his reputation as an innovative filmmaker with a genuine talent for large scale science fiction productions. Establishing himself in the world of visual arts, the young lensman got his start in music videos and TV commercials. Throughout the 1990s his credits include big budget international ads for Nike, Coca-Cola and American Express which paved the way to his first feature film The Crow (1994). Sadly the film is remembered for the on-set death of leading man Brandon Lee, a tragedy which overshadowed Proyas' Hollywood debut.
As a successful commercial director, Proyas' is known for his supernatural cityscapes and deft handling of special effects. One of his early efforts, Dark City (1998) was lauded by critics for its seamless blending of Noir and SciFi traditions and garnered the young director cult status, though it performed poorly at the box office. Prior to his work on KNOWING, the director's summer blockbuster I, Robot (2004) - featuring Will Smith as a Chicago police detective at war with a cyborg army - yielded nearly $350 million in sales worldwide.

KNOWING takes the end of the world scenario to its darkest conclusion when stars Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne successfully team up to solve the mystery of a doomsday document penned by her mother but ultimately fail to stop the predicted apocalypse. Born in Australia and cast in a series of local productions, Byrne first appeared in a very small role in a major American feature film (Star Wars - Attack of the Clones) in 2002. She went on to more significant parts in Troy in 2004 and the lead in Paul McGuigan's romantic thriller Wicker Park.
Cast in the leading role in TVs Damages brought Rose Byrne to celebrity status and earned her the female lead in KNOWING. Portraying the daughter of a troubled child who's contribution to a 1958 time capsule predicts the end of the world, Byrne plays the perfect romantic foil to scientist Nicolas Cage as he confronts the consequences of KNOWING when the world will end before anyone else.