Danny Boyle’s ‘Ink’ Opens Venice Film Festival With World Premiere

The Danny Boyle Ink Venice premiere opened the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, giving the director’s adaptation of James Graham’s stage play its world premiere in competition at the Sala Grande. Jack O’Connell stars as newspaper editor Larry Lamb, with Guy Pearce portraying Rupert Murdoch and Claire Foy among the principal cast.

La Biennale di Venezia confirmed Ink as the festival’s opening film, screening it after the opening ceremony on the first night of the September 2 to 12 event. The movie is one of the titles competing for the festival’s Golden Lion.

Danny Boyle Ink Venice premiere brings a stage hit to the screen

Ink is adapted from Graham’s acclaimed play about Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the struggling British newspaper The Sun and his appointment of Larry Lamb as editor in 1969.

The drama follows the attempt to rebuild the newspaper around a more populist approach to news, entertainment and circulation. Rather than treating the story solely as a portrait of Murdoch, the film places considerable emphasis on Lamb and the newsroom involved in transforming the paper.

The official Venice program lists the film at 116 minutes and confirms Boyle as director, Graham as screenwriter and O’Connell, Pearce and Foy as the central cast.

Jack O’Connell plays Larry Lamb opposite Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch

O’Connell takes the role of Lamb, the editor chosen to reshape The Sun, while Pearce plays Murdoch during an early stage of the media executive’s expansion in Britain.

The casting places two very different performances at the center of the film. O’Connell’s character is embedded in the daily construction of the newspaper, while Pearce’s Murdoch represents the ownership strategy and ambition driving the transformation.

Foy plays Jules Davies and joins an ensemble working within a story that moves through journalism, commerce, competition and the rapidly changing British media culture of the late 1960s.

Reuters reported from Venice that Boyle sees the film as a story about disruption within a rigid media establishment, while also connecting its historical subject to modern questions about journalism and technology.

Ink arrives with contemporary media questions built into its history

The original story is set decades before social media, streaming news or generative artificial intelligence, but the underlying question is recognizable: what happens when media organizations reshape themselves around what audiences most urgently want to consume?

That theme gives Ink contemporary relevance without requiring the film to leave its 1969 setting. The rise of a mass-market tabloid becomes a way to examine circulation, audience behavior, commercial pressure and the relationship between information and entertainment.

Boyle has also discussed the potential threat artificial intelligence poses to journalism’s ability to establish trustworthy information. Those comments echo broader conversations taking place at Venice this year about media concentration, political filmmaking and technology.

The Associated Press reported that Ink received a five-minute ovation at its Venice premiere and noted that the film helped establish the political and media-focused tone of this year’s festival.

Netflix has U.S. and Latin American rights

The Venice launch also arrives with distribution already established in several territories. Netflix has acquired rights in the United States and Latin America, while StudioCanal is handling theatrical distribution across several international markets.

Netflix’s official fall movie slate lists Ink with a select-theater release beginning December 11 before its Netflix availability in the U.S. and Latin America. The listing identifies Boyle as director and O’Connell, Pearce and Foy as the starring trio.

That distribution structure gives the film both a festival launch and a later commercial rollout, rather than making Venice its only major public showcase.

Venice gives Ink its first audience test

The opening-night position carries particular visibility. Venice is one of the major starting points for the fall film season, and its competition frequently becomes part of the conversation around awards, international distribution and filmmaker-driven releases.

For Boyle, the premiere represents his first film presentation at Venice despite a career that includes Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire and Steve Jobs.

For Graham, it brings a stage work first produced in London to a much wider global audience. His screenplay preserves the central historical figures while shifting a story originally designed for theater into Boyle’s cinematic language.

The Danny Boyle Ink Venice premiere has now moved the film out of the preview stage and into public exhibition, beginning a festival and release cycle that will continue beyond Venice later this year.