New photos from Danny Boyle’s “Ink” reveal Guy Pearce as a young Rupert Murdoch, Jack O’Connell as editor Larry Lamb, and Claire Foy as Fleet Street reporter Jules Davies in the filmmaker’s propulsive account of the birth of modern tabloid journalism.
Adapted by James Graham from his Tony- and Olivier Award-winning play, “Ink” begins in 1969, when Murdoch purchases the struggling British newspaper The Sun and recruits Lamb to transform it into the biggest paper in the world. Their formula—sensational headlines, sports, celebrity gossip, human-interest stories, and sex—would radically alter journalism and help create a media culture whose influence is still being felt today.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Boyle explained that the film’s historical subject immediately struck him as a way to examine “the future of the press, the future of the truth.”
The director also resisted depicting Murdoch as an uncomplicated villain, arguing that demonizing a powerful figure can become an easy way for everyone else to avoid acknowledging their part in the system. “If you monsterize, you just easily free yourself of responsibility,” Boyle said.
Instead, “Ink” focuses heavily on Lamb, the largely forgotten editor who channeled his anger, ambition, and resentment of Britain’s establishment into a radically populist newspaper. Boyle, who grew up near Manchester, said he identified with Lamb’s status as a northern outsider and cast O’Connell after working with him on “28 Years Later.”
O’Connell described Lamb as a significant influence on modern British culture who nevertheless “operated very much in the dark.” His newsroom includes Foy’s Jules, a fictional composite inspired by several women who worked on Fleet Street during the period.
While the film recreates the physical pleasures of old-school newspaper production—the typesetting, printing presses, and freshly printed pages—Boyle said he had no interest in simple nostalgia. The story instead traces how The Sun’s pursuit of circulation created an “ignition point” for the media environment audiences inhabit today.
As previously announced, “Ink” will open the 2026 Venice Film Festival on September 2 before competing for the Golden Lion. Netflix acquired the film’s U.S. and Latin American rights and will release it in select theaters on December 11, followed by its streaming debut on January 8, 2027.
