Netflix acquires Danny Boyle’s Rupert Murdoch film and Venice opener Ink

Netflix has acquired the U.S. and Latin American rights to Danny Boyle’s Rupert Murdoch drama Ink, giving the streamer a Venice Film Festival opener with awards-season visibility and political heft. The film will open the 83rd Venice Film Festival on the Lido, with a world premiere in the Sala Grande on Sept. 2 and a cast led by Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy.

Set in 1969, Ink follows Murdoch and tabloid editor Larry Lamb as they build The Sun into a force in British media. That subject gives the film a built-in argument about ownership, editorial power and the machinery of influence, making it more than a period drama about a newspaper launch. Murdoch’s name still carries the weight of News Corp’s global reach and decades of debate over how concentrated media power shapes public life.

For Netflix, the purchase fits a familiar pattern: buying buzzy festival titles that can work as prestige signals as well as audience draws. A Venice opener has a different kind of commercial value from a standard streamer acquisition because it arrives with critical attention, awards chatter and a built-in marketing hook. In practice, that means one title can serve multiple jobs at once, from subscriber acquisition to brand building to a foothold in the prestige-film conversation that once belonged mainly to traditional studios.

The move also lands amid a broader race among streamers to secure auteur-driven films at major festivals. MUBI, which has been pushing harder into financing and distribution, struck a multi-year co-financing pact with Helsinki-based fund manager IPR.VC to bankroll a slate of prestige, auteur-driven European films. That kind of deal shows how the competition has expanded beyond simply buying finished movies. Streamers are increasingly trying to shape the festival pipeline itself.

Netflix has spent years using festival acquisitions to broaden its identity beyond television and franchise programming, and Ink extends that effort into a project with obvious cultural and political resonance. Boyle’s involvement adds another layer: his films often pair visual energy with social and historical themes, a combination that tends to travel well through festivals and onto streaming platforms. By taking the U.S. and Latin American rights, Netflix secured a film that can move from Venice prestige to global distribution under one banner.