Danny Boyle's Murdoch film already has a home — Netflix grabbed 'Ink' before Venice
Netflix bought the rights to 'Ink', Danny Boyle's film about Rupert Murdoch and The Sun tabloid, which opens the Venice Film Festival on September 2.
The Venice Film Festival is still a month and a half away, but its opening film has already changed hands: Netflix bought the distribution rights to ‘Ink’, Danny Boyle’s new film about the rise of Rupert Murdoch, for North America and Latin America. Studiocanal, which produced it, keeps a good share of the remaining territories.
What is Danny Boyle’s ‘Ink’ about?
About how a newspaper changes a country. Set in the late 1960s, the film tells the story of editor Larry Lamb and a young Murdoch turning The Sun into a tabloid as influential as it was scandalous — the headline factory that redrew the British press. Jack O’Connell plays Lamb, Guy Pearce takes on Murdoch and Claire Foy completes the lead trio. The production carries a reunion with history: Boyle is working again with Tessa Ross, producer of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, the film that won him the Oscar.
When does ‘Ink’ premiere and why does Venice matter?
The world premiere is September 2, on Venice’s opening night, where the film also plays in competition — the official programme is on the Biennale’s site. It’s the first time Boyle has taken a film to the Lido, and Netflix locking down the rights this far before the premiere says plenty about the heat around the project: studios usually wait for first reactions; this time, someone preferred not to risk the competition seeing it first.
For Netflix, it’s another piece in a prestige strategy that stays aggressive even in a bittersweet year — we recently covered how the platform is navigating records and AI controversies. For the rest of us, it’s a delicious promise: Boyle filming newspapers, ink and ambition on one screen. If the film is half as good as its subject, September can’t come soon enough.
By Lucy Bennett
Image: Montclair Film / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
