#ink 2027

🆕The 83rd Venice Film Festival has found its opening night movie in Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy.

The biographical newspaper drama will kick off the 2026 iteration of the international film festival with its premiere in Italy on Sept. 2. The event will then run through Sept. 12.

“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.’ 1969 — the year we first walked on the moon — and the year Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb launched a newspaper that was to change the world far more,” Boyle shared in a Thursday statement. “Long before Fox News, click bait and Truth Social; decades before Twitter, Facebook, Google and Only Fans, these two men created a new tabloid which 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. A script by James Graham I felt compelled and privileged to make.”

Indeed, original playwright James Graham wrote the screenplay about “a group of visionaries and misfits who 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,” per the logline. Pearce plays Murdoch; O’Connell plays Lamb.

Boyle produces with Tessa Ross, Michael Ellenberg and Tracey Seaward. Executive producers include Anna Marsh, Ron Halpern, Joe Naftalin, Tonia Davis, Zoe Edwards, Sudie Smyth and Graham. StudioCanal fully financed the film.

Netflix has dated its most recent acquisition “Ink,” Academy Award winner Danny Boyle‘s incendiary drama about the birth of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid empire.

Variety can exclusively reveal, the film will open in select theaters Dec. 11 before landing on Netflix on Jan. 8 in the U.S. and Latin America. Alongside the dating, the streamer has unveiled a new image from the film which shows Oscar nominee Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch.

The timing drops “Ink” squarely into the thick of awards season. The film will have its world premiere as the opening night selection of the Venice Film Festival, where it will compete for the Golden Lion, before making its Canadian debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Starring Jack O’Connell, Claire Foy and Guy Pearce, “Ink” is based on the Tony-nominated play of the same name by James Graham, who adapted his own work for the screen. Pearce plays a brash, 30-something Rupert Murdoch, with O’Connell as editor Larry Lamb, the working-class newspaper journalist who helped him remake The Sun into a populist juggernaut.

Boyle directs from Graham’s screenplay. The two-time Oscar winner, who took home directing and best picture honors for “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008) and most recently reunited with screenwriter Alex Garland on “28 Years Later,” produces “Ink” alongside Tracey Seaward, Tessa Ross and Michael Ellenberg.

Graham, one of Britain’s most sought-after dramatists, wrote the Olivier-winning “Dear England” and the acclaimed miniseries “Sherwood.” His stage version of “Ink” bowed at London’s Almeida Theatre in 2017 before transferring to the West End and Broadway, where Bertie Carvel won the Tony for featured actor as Murdoch.

Studiocanal fully financed “Ink” and handles worldwide sales, releasing the film theatrically across its territories. The international rollout begins Jan. 6 in France and Belgium, followed by the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand on Jan. 7 and the U.K. and Poland on Jan. 8. Italy opens Feb. 18, with Germany on Feb. 25.

Coupled with its Venice launch and TIFF berth, plus an expected Telluride stop in between given its premiere designations at the other two fests, the release strategy signals the streamer’s intent to campaign “Ink” heavily through the Oscar season. Netflix’s slate is stacked, anchored by Cannes acquisitions “La Bola Negra,” which shared the festival’s best director prize, and “Gentle Monster,” starring French star Léa Seydoux. Still to come from the streaming giant are the untitled sequel to “Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood” from director David Fincher and the war drama “The Mosquito Bowl” from Peter Berg.