Guy Pearce in talks to play Rupert Murdoch in Danny Boyle movie adaptation of Ink

When Guy Pearce was getting his start on Neighbours, he probably didn’t think that one day, he might be playing another famous Australian, one of the most well-known figures in the world: Rupert Murdoch.

Pearce is reportedly in talks to take on the lead role of Murdoch in an adaptation of stage production, Ink, which Trainspotting filmmaker Danny Boyle is set to direct.

Ink debuted in London’s West End in 2017 and dramatises the impactful moment Murdoch bought The Sun newspaper in 1969.

At the time, The Sun was a publication on the wane and Murdoch’s acquisition kicked off a new era of tabloid media as he set out, with handpicked editor Larry Lamb, to disrupt the British newspaper industry and take on its main rival, the Daily Mirror.

Murdoch unleashed a circulation war and bedded in the culture of tabloid newspapers, such as the page three girl, that culminated with the 2011 phone hacking scandal which engulfed News UK.

The play included the 1969 kidnapping and murder of Muriel McKay, the wife of Murdoch’s deputy, Alick McKay, who had been taken by culprits whose real target was Anna Murdoch., the mogul’s second wife.

Ink won an Olivier award for its British run and two Tonys for its Broadway production. Last year, a version of Ink was staged in Sydney at The New Theatre.

The stage production’s playwright, James Graham, is also board to write the script for the film adaptation. Graham is an acclaimed British dramatist known for specialising in “state of the nation” political and social realist stories for the stage and for the screen.

For TV, Graham has written crime series Sherwood, the Welsh episode of The Crown, miniseries Quiz and TV film Brexit: The Uncivil War. His plays also include Dear England for the National Theatre, Labour of Love, The Vote and Best of Enemies.

Pearce’s most recent credits include his Oscar nomination for his performance in The Brutalist and a role in the upcoming thriller The Woman in Cabin 10. Boyle has just returned to the zombie franchise with the sequel 28 Years Later.

Murdoch’s outsized, decades-long influence over the UK, US and Australia through his media empire has made the mogul catnip for writers and filmmakers.

He’s been fictionalised into thinly veiled versions, such as in Anchorman 2 or, notably, as the James Bond villain Elliot Carver, played by Jonathan Pryce, in Tomorrow Never Dies.

Murdoch was portrayed by two British actors, Simon McBurney and Malcolm McDowell, in a pair of 2019 screen projects, series The Loudest Voice and film Bombshell, that both dramatised Roger Ailes’ ouster from Fox News over sexual accusations.

Australians have also had a stab at playing Murdoch – Patrick Brammall in the TV miniseries, Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch War, Ben Mendelsohn in the 2002 movie Black and White and Barry Humphries in 1991 series Selling Hitler.

Perhaps the most famous onscreen version of Murdoch wasn’t him at all, at least not all of him – Logan Roy in the award-winning HBO drama Succession.

Played by Brian Cox, the Roy patriarch who presided over a similar media empire was heavily inspired by the Murdoch family. Succession creator Jesse Armstrong had originally conceived of the project as an unproduced Murdochs film but then expanded the idea to take in other dynastic families including the Redstones, the Maxwells and the Sinclairs.

After Murdoch stepped down in 2023 and handed the reins of his empire to son Lachlan, Cox said, “I think he’s been watching too much Succession, clearly”.

Cox also criticised Murdoch’s declaration his companies were committed to freedom of speech. The Scottish actor said, “Freedom? Freedom for what? Freedom to impose his ideas on other people, freedom to kind of manipulate certain things in certain directions?

“I mean, he’s certainly done a lot of that in his life.”