Netflix has acquired U.S. and Latin American distribution rights to Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” ensuring the filmmaker’s Rupert Murdoch drama has a major domestic home before it opens the 2026 Venice Film Festival in September.
The film stars Guy Pearce as Murdoch and Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb, the editor tasked with turning the struggling British newspaper The Sun into a populist tabloid powerhouse. Claire Foy co-stars as Jules Davies, the wife of Lamb.
Adapted by James Graham from his Tony-nominated play of the same name, “Ink” charts how Murdoch and Lamb transformed The Sun into Britain’s best-selling tabloid, overtaking its rival, The Mirror, and helping reshape the country’s media landscape in the process.
The film will make its world premiere in competition on September 2, opening the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. It marks Boyle’s first film in competition at Venice and gives Netflix a prominent opening-night title as the fall awards season gets underway.
“I’ve been to the Biennale many times, but this is my baptism at the film festival—a huge honour to be in a city of such extraordinary art and opening this great festival with my new film INK,” Boyle said when the premiere was announced. “A script by James Graham I felt compelled and privileged to make.”
StudioCanal fully financed “Ink” and produced it alongside Media Res and House Productions. Boyle, Tessa Ross, Michael Ellenberg, and Tracey Seaward serve as producers, while Anna Marsh, Ron Halpern, Joe Naftalin, Tonia Davis, Zoe Edwards, Sudie Smyth, and Graham are executive producers.
The film reunites Boyle and Ross following their collaboration on “Slumdog Millionaire.” Boyle most recently directed “28 Years Later,” while O’Connell appeared in “Sinners” and its sequel, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.” Pearce earned an Academy Award nomination for “The Brutalist,” while Foy’s credits include “The Crown” and “All of Us Strangers.”
StudioCanal will release “Ink” theatrically in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Benelux, Australia, and New Zealand. The film has now sold worldwide, although Netflix has not announced its U.S. release date or distribution plans.
Netflix has not yet announced its release plans for “Ink,” although its Venice opening-night slot makes a theatrical awards-season rollout followed by a streaming debut the likely strategy.
Edward Davis is a senior film journalist and longtime contributor to The Playlist. Davis covers the full breadth of cinema — from major studio releases to independent and international film.
