{"id":653275,"date":"2026-10-13T08:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T08:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/653275\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T08:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T08:52:11","slug":"ink-finally-hits-its-native-u-k-audience-at-london-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/653275\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ink’ Finally Hits Its Native U.K. Audience at London Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tInk<\/a> has hit London.<\/p>\n

\n\tDanny Boyle<\/a> and his starry cast, led by Jack O\u2019Connell and Guy Pearce<\/a>, took to the BFI London Film Festival<\/a> carpet for the U.K. premiere on Monday night, around a month after it opened the Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI expect the difference to be palpable,\u201d began O\u2019Connell, star of Sinners and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, to The Hollywood Reporter about finally putting Ink in front of its native audience. \u201cIt\u2019s a London film. If it doesn\u2019t work here, it\u2019s not going to work anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie, adapted from James Graham\u2019s stage play, depicts Pearce\u2019s Rupert Murdoch<\/a> as he enters the British newspaper scene, acquiring the then-failing tabloid The Sun in 1969. Hiring Larry Lamb (O\u2019Connell) as editor, the two combined far-right political reporting and populist rabble to turn the paper into a dark force in British media. Murdoch would take the lessons learned at The Sun and apply them to build his U.S. media empire with The New York Post and Fox News.<\/p>\n

\n\tBackdropped by the smoky, seedy journalistic epicentre that is Fleet Street, O\u2019Connell said he didn\u2019t categorize the notorious Lamb as a \u201cbad\u201d person. \u201cI think he was just perhaps overly ambitious,\u201d said the star. \u201cI think this guy was on a pursuit, or his obsession was newspapers, and I guess he broke a couple of rules along the way. And it wasn\u2019t victimless, but yeah, I don\u2019t consider him an out-and-out bad guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPearce, on the other hand, told THR he\u2019s keen to meet up with Murdoch for brunch. He said about being cast as the Australian-born media mogul: \u201cLiz [Murdoch] told me that her dad was happy with me playing him, but I don\u2019t know to what degree that is. I can\u2019t really speak to that, to be honest. He might watch the film and go, \u2018Eugh! Jesus Christ, what were they thinking?’\u201d He certainly thinks that the feature \u201cwill resonate\u201d with fans in the British capital.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoyle, director of Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later, said the film showcases an integral origin story that speaks to the sensationalism of our current climate. \u201cYou can argue about whether they introduced this entirely or whether they nurtured something that was latent within us,\u201d he said to THR. \u201cBut it is the beginnings of the attention economy, of the clickbait economy, of the \u2018What\u2019s next? Swipe, move on.\u2019 It\u2019s the very beginnings of it there, the beginnings of the fire, and now it\u2019s a bushfire that\u2019s all around us, everywhere. And I don\u2019t know whether we\u2019re going to survive it\u2026 But if you want to understand it, I think there\u2019s a very good case for this [as] the place where it began.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPlaywright Graham concurred with Boyle\u2019s analysis, explaining that Ink is a deeply British piece of work. \u201cI really believe that by drilling down into its Englishness and the \u201960s, the people in America, Europe, everywhere will relate to this story, which is essentially a story about how a disruptive bunch of people in the \u201960s turned something around,\u201d he said. \u201c[The Sun] was the worst-selling paper in England and [they] made it the biggest-selling paper in the world, and I feel like people will link that to what\u2019s happening at the moment in tech and Silicon Valley and that culture of breaking things, disrupting things, challenging things.\u201d (Boyle actually likened Lamb and Murdoch\u2019s achievement of out-selling The Daily Mirror to \u201ca local pub team beating Real Madrid.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Guy Pearce, who plays Rupert Murdoch in Danny Boyle\u2019s #Ink<\/a>, says at the #BFILondonFilmFestival<\/a> that he\u2019s serious about a meet-up with the media mogul.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiz [Murdoch] told me her that her dad was happy with me playing him, but I don\u2019t know to what degree that is\u2026 He might watch\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/MbX2zVMDuE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe screenwriter continued about the unique beast that is Fleet Street: \u201cNo other country in the world has had its newspapers on one street with all the restaurants and bars and culture, and I feel like the richness of that and the seduction of that, but also the ugliness of that specificity, really appeals to people across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBritish star O\u2019Connell, who has also collaborated with Boyle on the 28 Years Later films, jokingly said the director\u2019s \u201cgone quiet\u201d about their next project together, though admitted they are \u201cinseparable.\u201d On which film from this year he\u2019d have liked to have been involved in, the actor coyly confessed it\u2019d be Martin McDonagh\u2019s CIA tragicomedy Wild Horse Nine.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 70th BFI London Film Festival<\/a> runs Oct. 7-18, and opened with the European premiere<\/a> of Andrew Scott\u2019s tearjerker Elsinore. Some of the glitziest galas so far include Wild Horse Nine<\/a>, Artificial, Paper Tiger, Possible Love, Bunker and La Bola Negra. Check out THR\u2018s Screen Talks coverage from this year\u2019s London Film Festival and chats with Andrew Scott<\/a>, John Malkovich<\/a>, Javier Bardem<\/a>, Naomi Ackie<\/a>, Ava DuVernay<\/a>, Cynthia Erivo<\/a>, Sofia Coppola<\/a> and Danny Boyle<\/a>.<\/p>\n