Media moguls aren’t exactly at the top of anyone’s favorites list, but their stories are fascinating. Danny Boyle excels at adapting the lives of influential and unique figures. He is preparing to take his latest subject, Newscorp founder Rupert Murdoch, to screens for Ink, an explosive docudrama with Guy Pearce and Jack O’Connell eyed to star.
Boyle’s Ink project hails from Studiocanal, with Oscar nominee Guy Pearce (The Brutalist, Memento, Sunrise) lining up to play Rupert Murdoch, while Jack O’Connell (Sinners, Unbroken, Eden Lake) is negotiating to play Larry Lamb, who Murdoch hired to run The Sun in 1969. According to Deadline‘s exclusive report, Ink is “an explosive cinematic rollercoaster 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.” Ink takes its concept from the original play by James Graham, who will adapt the screenplay for Boyle’s adaptation.
Deadline offers more regarding the plot, saying, Ink “follows Murdoch’s struggling newspaper, The Sun, as he intends to make it a must-read news source and hires Lamb to run the paper. The purchase of the paper would start a long-standing rivalry between The Sun and The Mirror, leading to the rise of the British tabloids as we know them.”
Boyle plans to roll cameras in October, with Pearce and O’Connell being Boyle’s two top choices to play Murdoch and Lamb, respectively.
Guy Pearce recently starred alongside Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in Brady Corbet’s critically acclaimed epic The Brutalist, about the visionary architect, László Tóth, who flees post-war Europe in 1947 for a brighter future in the United States and finds his life forever changed by a wealthy client. The multi-award-winning snagged three Oscars at last year’s Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Adrien Brody), Best Cinematography (Lol Crawley), and Best Original Score (Daniel Blumberg).
If you want a taste of Jack O’Connell, check out Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, my favorite live-action film of 2025. In Coogler’s soulful folk horror film, O’Connell plays Remmick, a menacing evil with an ear for music. You can catch O’Connell in theaters for Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, which continues the zombie survival horror that began in 2002.
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