Guy Pearce to play Rupert Murdoch in Danny Boyle’s Ink
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle will helm his new film Ink following 28 Years Later, produced by Studiocanal, Media Res, and House Productions. Deadline reports that Oscar nominee Guy Pearce is in talks to portray media mogul Rupert Murdoch, while Jack O’Connell is negotiating to play Larry Lamb, editor of The Sun.
The film chronicles the turbulent story of a group of innovators who sought to reinvent news publishing in a way that could reshape the world. Screenwriter James Graham is adapting the project from his own stage play. Filming is set to begin this October.
Ink focuses on a challenging period at The Sun, when Murdoch aimed to transform the paper into a must-read publication and tasked Lamb with achieving this vision. Murdoch’s acquisition sparked a fierce rivalry between The Sun and The Mirror, igniting a new wave of British tabloid culture.
Studiocanal is fully financing the film and will distribute it in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Benelux, Australia, and New Zealand. Boyle reunites with producer Tessa Ross, with whom he collaborated on Slumdog Millionaire.
Rupert Murdoch has been portrayed before—by Malcolm McDowell in Bombshell and Simon McBurney in the miniseries The Loudest Voice—but Hollywood has never devoted a major project solely to one of the most influential figures in media history.
Deadline notes that Pearce and O’Connell have long been Boyle’s top choices for Murdoch and Lamb. Pearce was recently nominated for an Oscar for The Brutalist, while O’Connell played the villainous vampire Remy in the box office hit Sinners. O’Connell previously worked with Boyle on 28 Years Later and will return as the lead in its sequel, 28 Years Later: Bone Temple, premiering next January.
Boyle is no stranger to biopics, having directed Steve Jobs (2015) starring Michael Fassbender.
