I recently had the opportunity to chat with Ryne Douglas Pearson, author and screenwriter behind the new sci-fi thriller Knowing.

Knowing is a film about a series of predictions found in buried in a time capsule that foretells every major disaster in the history of mankind including the imminent destruction of the world. Since its release it has created on online buzz and conversation regarding the deeper meanings behind the story and some of the spiritual connotations associated with it. I was given the chance to ask Pearson about what his intentions were when he came up with the story and how he and his team of writers developed a script that had some very apparent references to spirituality, the Bible and divine power in the universe. Here is his take on what was intended, what is inferred, and what is left open to interpretation.

Jeremy Zondlo: Hi, how are you doing today Ryne?

Ryne Douglas Pearson: Very good, very good!

JZ: Good! Alright, well let's just jump right into the movie here. When I was watching Knowing I noticed some very clear spiritual ideas and themes and I was wondering what kind of a spiritual background you have and how that played into the development of this script in particular?

RDP: I'm Catholic, I was raised Catholic, but the interesting thing was I didn't actually try and put those things as like a part of a message, I just asked myself a question: If a person was confronted with knowing that the end of the world was at hand, how would they act? How would that influence their belief on anything, you know? And you've seen the movie, correct?

JZ: Yes I have.

RDP: Then you know it's that whole idea of the main character John who comes full circle at the end. You know, he starts out a person who has lost his faith because of losing his wife and is estranged from his father, and it's a father/son story on two different levels here. At the end of the movie, after he's made the greatest sacrifice by letting his son go, he returns to his father, and his father, in the most poignant scene in the movie and I didn't even write it and I love it, he says, "This isn't the end," and Nicolas Cage says "I know"; and that's sort of how he answers the whole medial meaning there, that he's come through that journey and he understands now.

JZ: Was the apparent journey of John's character from non-belief to belief, or belief in some type of power at work at the end, something that you intended to include?

RDP: Well, there's, you know, the old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. It's true. If you're confronted with knowing you are going to die or knowing that everyone is going to die, I think the natural question is that you're going to wonder what's next.

JZ: Right. I noticed there is a reference to an afterlife and not being able to know for sure made very early on by John when he is having a conversation with his son Caleb. What is the significance of that knowing versus not knowing for you in particular?

RDP: Well for me in terms of the script and the movie, for him it's the journey. I wonder, you know, because we're starting from a place where he has in essence not lost his faith completely, just is completely unsure of how things could happen to this point with God. You know, how could he lose his wife? How could his son be left alone with him? And he's starting at that point. So I wonder and question, what was he like before? Was he closer to his father? Did he have a relationship with God and had he lost that? And so from that point forward where we start the movie, you know, I'm anticipating that he's sort of almost at the down side of the hill and is now going to have to climb the next hill to get back to where he wants to be or should be.

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