Danny Boyle's 'Ink' to Open Venice, Then Hit Theatres Before Netflix in January
Danny Boyle's tabloid drama Ink will open the Venice Film Festival on 2 September, giving Netflix a prestigious launch pad for one of its most high-profile autumn titles.
The film stars Jack O'Connell as Larry Lamb, the real-life editor hired by Rupert Murdoch in 1969 to steer The Sun into the heart of the British newspaper market. Guy Pearce plays Murdoch. Claire Foy plays a journalist (Variety).
For Netflix, the release strategy is a familiar blend of festival prestige and theatrical windowing. Ink will play in select cinemas from 11 December before arriving on the streaming service in the US and Latin America on 8 January 2027, according to Netflix's Tudum site. Variety adds that the film will receive roughly four weeks of theatrical exclusivity across December and January before the streaming debut.
That pattern — a festival bow, a limited theatrical run, then a streaming drop — has become Netflix's preferred awards-season template. The theatrical window (the gap between a film's cinema release and its streaming availability) gives a film credibility with voters who still associate big-screen runs with serious filmmaking, while the eventual streaming release brings it to the bulk of its audience.
The cast pairs O'Connell, whose profile has risen steadily through television and independent film, with Pearce and Foy — both familiar to global audiences from major television dramas. Boyle, an Academy Award winner, directs from a script centred on the founding era of The Sun, when a new kind of tabloid sensibility was reshaping British print media.
Lamb's tenure at The Sun is remembered for aggressive circulation growth and a populist editorial style that influenced decades of British journalism. The film zeroes in on that origin story: a proprietor and an editor gambling on a formula that would upend the competition.
Venice's opening-night slot has recently served as a launching pad for major awards contenders, and Ink's placement there puts it firmly in that conversation. The festival runs in early September on the Lido. After Venice, the film's road runs through its December theatrical engagement and into the streaming release in the new year.
