Danny Boyle inkA drama about Rupert Murdoch’s rise to media power in the UK’s tabloid world will open this year’s Venice Film Festival.
ink It will have its world premiere in competition in Venice, where it will open the 83rd festival on September 2.
Guy Pearce stars as Murdoch in the biographical drama from playwright James Graham, who adapted his Tony-nominated play of the same name for the screen. Jack O’Connell (Sinners) plays Larry Lamb, hired by Murdoch to run his new British tabloid newspaper The sun And turning her into a dark force in the British media. Claire Foy plays Jules Davies.
This will be Boyle’s first time on the Lido. Boyle said: “This is my baptism at the film festival,” describing it as “a great honor to be in a city with such exceptional art and to open this great festival with my new film.”
ink The film is set in 1969, the year Murdoch and Lamb was released The suna newspaper that achieved great success, with its far-right political reporting and populist rabble-rousing, and set a model for the new media era.
“Long before Fox News, click bait, and Truth Social; and decades before Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Only Fans, these two men created a new tabloid that against all odds became the biggest-selling newspaper in the world,” Boyle said. “Cheeky, irreverent, and bold: the super bird sun He challenged the establishment and reshaped our world for the modern age.
Venice artistic director Alberto Barberan praised the collaboration ink “An Oscar-winning director, one of the leading playwrights on the London theater scene, and three of the most celebrated actors in contemporary British cinema.”
Boyle produced the film with Tessa Ross, his Oscar-winning producer Slumdog Millionaireand Tracy Seward (Popes, Philomena). The film is produced by Studiocanal, Media Res and House Productions, with Anna Marsh, Ron Halpern and Joe Naftalin executive producers for Studiocanal.
Studiocanal handles global sales, and shares local representation with WME Independent. Studiocanal will also directly handle the theatrical release of the film across several of its operating territories, including the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Australia and New Zealand.
The 2026 Venice Film Festival will be held from September 2 to 12. Venice will announce the full 2026 lineup on July 23.
