The rise of The Sun becomes a warning about ambition, popular journalism and ethical surrender.
VENICE, ITALY
Danny Boyle has premiered Ink, an energetic historical drama examining Rupert Murdoch’s transformation of the British press. Presented at the Venice Film Festival, the film concentrates on Murdoch’s acquisition and relaunch of The Sun in 1969, when the Australian businessman began building the media influence that would eventually extend across several continents.
Guy Pearce portrays Murdoch, while Jack O’Connell plays Larry Lamb, the editor recruited to turn the struggling newspaper into a mass-market competitor. Claire Foy also stars in the production. The screenplay was written by James Graham and adapts his acclaimed 2017 stage play of the same name.
Murdoch and Lamb sought to defeat the market-leading Daily Mirror by producing a newspaper that was faster, more provocative and closely connected to working-class popular culture. Headlines became sharper, celebrity coverage expanded and sexualised material was increasingly used to attract readers. The strategy helped The Sun achieve enormous circulation but transformed the boundaries of British tabloid journalism.
Boyle applies the restless visual style associated with films such as Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire. Rapid editing, crowded compositions and pulsating headlines reproduce the pressure of a newsroom governed by circulation figures. The story also incorporates real events, including the kidnapping of Muriel McKay, although characters, conversations and motivations have been altered for dramatic purposes.
Rather than presenting Murdoch only as a villain, the film explores how his outsider status and anti-establishment instincts initially challenged a rigid media hierarchy. Its deeper criticism concerns the commercial system created around him, in which public attention became more valuable than restraint. Ink will receive a limited theatrical release in December before arriving on Netflix in January 2027.
Hechos que no se doblan. / Facts that do not bend.