Danny Boyle Receives Deadline Legend Award, Talks Up Ink

Danny Boyle received the Deadline Legend Award at Deadline's Contenders Film Los Angeles awards-season event, and he used his time onstage to talk about his new film, Ink. He spoke on Saturday in conversation with Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr., according to Deadline.

Boyle is best known to many audiences for Slumdog Millionaire, which won the 2009 Best Picture Oscar. The film also brought Boyle the Academy Award for Best Director.

Ink is based on James Graham's Tony-winning play. It follows Rupert Murdoch and editor Larry Lamb as they try to revive The Sun, the British tabloid newspaper. Graham also wrote the screenplay. Guy Pearce plays Murdoch, and Jack O'Connell plays Lamb.

The film opened this year's Venice Film Festival, the annual showcase in Italy where distributors and critics first see many awards contenders. It is heading to cinemas on December 11.

Claire Foy plays Jules Davies, a character who differs from the play. Davies is a composite of several women who worked at The Sun, and one of them had an affair with Lamb. Lamb's son objected to the character, saying he felt she disparaged his mother's memory.

The film's epilogue also carries a detail that British audiences will not see in the same form. Headlines shown there were redacted in UK versions because of the country's strict libel laws, which make it risky to publish certain claims about real people. Those headlines will appear in the US versions, Deadline reported.

Boyle also addressed a common criticism of his work. He said he had accepted a point made by a French journalist, that all his films are about the same thing: usually a man who faces impossible odds and overcomes them. Boyle told Deadline that the skeleton, or underlying structure, of his films is the same.

Boyle's Legend Award adds a career honour to a filmography that spans many genres and subjects. Ink now sits at the centre of his upcoming year, with its December release date set against a film industry that is entering its busiest stretch of awards campaigning.