Nicolas Cage has signed on to star in the upcoming sci-fi thriller KNOWING for director Alex Proyas (DARK CITY). In the film, Cage will play a teacher who digs up a time capsule and finds inside a number of drawings that have correctly predicted past world events. The last drawing predicts the end of the world and Cage sets out to stop it. KNOWING has been around for quite a while with novelist Ryne Pearson writing the first draft. Since then it was rewritten by Stiles White and Juliet Snowden and then Proyas and Stuart Hazeldine gave it its more current polish. At one point a few years back, Richard Kelly was developing the film at Fox Searchlight but dropped out over budgetary concerns. The Proyas and Cage version will likely cost much more than the $15 million Searchlight was willing to spend. Cage had been looking for a new project after recently dropping out of Darren Aronofsky’s THE WRESTLER (he was replaced by Mickey Rourke). Cage can be seen on the 21st in NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS. Filming on KNOWING will begin this March in Australia.