Netflix is positioning “Ink,” Danny Boyle’s drama about the founding of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid empire, as an early Oscar contender following its passage through Venice and Telluride. The film opened Venice’s competition lineup, drew a four-minute standing ovation, and generated strong word of mouth carrying into Telluride, ahead of a December theatrical release and a January streaming debut.
Guy Pearce plays a 30-something Murdoch, opposite Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb, the working-class editor who helped him transform the struggling Sun into Britain’s dominant populist tabloid in 1969. James Graham adapted the screenplay from his own Tony-nominated stage play, and Boyle directs his first Venice premiere after decades of festival work elsewhere. At Telluride, Boyle joked with the crowd that audiences kept assuming the title referred to tattoos rather than the printing substance central to the story. Claire Foy rounds out the principal cast.
Editor Fin Oates gives the film a fragmented, propulsive cutting style that echoes Hank Corwin’s work on “The Big Short” and “Vice.” Johnnie Burn, who won an Oscar for his sound design on “The Zone of Interest,” handled sound, while composer Daniel Pemberton contributed an original score. Boyle produces alongside Tracey Seaward, Tessa Ross and Michael Ellenberg, continuing a stretch of high-profile work that includes this year’s “28 Years Later” and “Project Hail Mary.”
Netflix acquired the film ahead of Venice and now faces a crowded internal slate heading into awards season, with “La Bola Negra,” “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” “Possible Love,” “Gentle Monster” and “The Mosquito Bowl” all competing for campaign resources, screeners and voter attention within the same company. “Ink” moves next to Toronto before its December theatrical run, giving Netflix and the film’s stars several more weeks to build momentum heading into nominations voting.
