Fleet Street, 1969. A failing tabloid, a ruthless Australian mogul, and an editor willing to tear up the rulebook. Today, the first trailer for Danny Boyle's Ink has landed — and it looks every bit as brash and combustible as the story it tells.
The Story Behind the Story
Ink tells the story of a brash young Rupert Murdoch as he seeks to transform the fortunes of British tabloid newspaper The Sun alongside editor Larry Lamb. Lamb became an integral figure after the tabloid was acquired by Murdoch in 1969. Venice head Alberto Barbera described the film as an "account of publisher Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of the daily newspaper The Sun, which he entrusted to the unscrupulous Larry Lamb, turning it into Britain's best-selling tabloid at the expense of its rival, The Mirror."
The film will showcase The Sun's various decisions to bolster readership, which included running scandalous news stories and deploying elements like lewd images of models in Page 3. It is, in other words, the origin story of British tabloid culture itself — a subject that remains as charged and contested today as it ever was on Fleet Street.
A Stage Hit, Now on Screen
Ink is a 2026 biographical drama film directed by Danny Boyle and adapted by James Graham from his 2017 stage play. The play made its debut at the Almeida Theatre in 2017 before transferring to the West End and eventually Broadway in 2019, where it garnered two Tony Awards — for Best Featured Actor in a Play (Bertie Carvel) and Best Lighting Design of a Play (Neil Austin).
Graham adapted his own Olivier- and Tony-nominated stage play, tracking the creation of the infamous UK tabloid The Sun and the media ascendency of its incendiary owner. That Graham has written the screenplay himself gives the film adaptation a rare authorial continuity — the man who first put these characters on stage at the Almeida is the same man who has shaped them for the screen.
"These two men created a new tabloid that, against all the odds, became the biggest-selling newspaper in the world. Cheeky, irreverent, daring: the 'super soaraway' Sun challenged the establishment and remade our world for the modern era." — Danny Boyle
The Cast
Jack O'Connell plays Larry Lamb, the Yorkshire-born editor of The Sun and former Northern editor of The Daily Mail, with Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch, the Australian businessman and newspaper magnate who becomes The Sun's new owner. Claire Foy co-stars as Jules Davies, an amalgam of female executives who worked under Lamb at The Sun — a character new to the film adaptation.
The film also features Blake Harrison, Patrick Kennedy, Angus Imrie, and Brian Gleeson. Ink sees Boyle reuniting with cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler, who previously shot Boyle's sci-fi film Sunshine and his biopic Steve Jobs.
Venice, Cinemas, and Netflix
Ink opens the 83rd Venice Film Festival this evening — a prestigious slot that marks Boyle out as one of the few British directors capable of commanding that kind of international stage. The film will have its worldwide debut at the Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2026, followed by a select theatrical release on 11 December. Ink will release in the UK and Ireland in cinemas from 8 January 2027.
"A group of visionaries and misfits had an idea for a new kind of news — one that would give the people what they want and would change the face of the world we live in today." — Official synopsis
Rupert Murdoch himself was reported to be "very happy" with the casting. Whether he'll feel quite so sanguine once he's seen the finished film is, one suspects, quite another matter.
