EXCLUSIVE: Danny Boyle has made a name for himself by taking powerful real-life stories and turning them into thrilling cinematic experiences, and the Oscar winner looks to have found that next riveting tale to adapt. Sources tell Deadline that Boyle is on board to direct Ink, a Studiocanal, Media Res and House Productions pic that revolves around the rise of the Rupert Murdoch empire. Insiders add that Oscar nominee Guy Pearce is in talks to play the media mogul and NewsCorp founder and Jack O’Connell is in negotiations to play Larry Lamb, who Murdoch hired to run The Sun when he purchased it in 1969.
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. James Graham, who penned the original play, has adapted the screenplay with plans to shoot this October
Based on the James Graham play, 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.
Danny Boyle produces with Tessa Ross and Michael Ellenberg. The film reunites Boyle and Ross following their collaboration on Slumdog Millionaire. Tracey Seaward also produces. Tonia Davis is an exec producer.
Deadline first reported Media Res optioning James Graham’s play of the same name directed by Rupert Goold in 2020.
Studiocanal is fully financing the film. Ron Halpern and Joe Naftalin will oversee for for the studio. Studiocanal will release in their territories of the UK, France, Germany, Poland. Benelux, Australia and NZ handling worldwide sales.
While Hollywood occasionally has had Murdoch appear in projects over the years, with the most recent example being Malcolm McDowell playing him in a cameo role in the 2019 pic Bombshell, there hasn’t been an instance where the industry has decided to dive into how he came to be one of the most influential figures in history of media. There are plenty of places Boyle could have pulled from to tell this tale, but given how important this moment was in the Murdoch origin story, Boyle chose to go with source material that was ready for him to adapt.
When it came to who would play his two main leads, Pearce and O’Connell were Boyle top choices for Murdoch and Lamb from the start. Pearce is coming off his critically acclaimed role in the A24 epic The Brutalist, which earned him an Oscar nomination. The Australia native had been weighing several offers but the chance to play one of his country’s most iconic figures ultimately was to hard to pass on.
With O’Connell, Lamb essentially is equally if not more important to telling this chapter of Murdoch’s story and needed to be played by someone that could match wits with Pearce. O’Connell has had a big year that started with his scene-stealing role as villainous vampire Remy in the box office smash Sinners, followed by the Sony horror hit 28 Years Later. Boyle directed the latter pic, which is where he got his first chance to see O’Connell up close. The filmmaker was so excited by his performance that he made his character a focal point in the next film, 28 Years Later: Bone Temple, which bows in January.
Boyle is no stranger to taking on projects with larger-than-life figures at the center of the story, like his unconventional biopic Steve Jobs, which told the journey of the man who co-founded Apple and helped turn it into one of the world’s most powerful tech companies. With Murdoch’s global reach on so many fronts, Boyle looks to be aiming for the fences given the mogul’s impact on not just journalism but how the media landscape has been formed over the decades.
Boyle is repped by WME; Pearce is repped by CAA, Independent Talent Group and Shanahan Management; and O’Connell is repped by UTA, Range Media Partners and Conway van Gelder Grant. Graham is represented by Curtis Brown and WME.
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