Boyle says part of that work involved bringing old photographs briefly to life. Reports surrounding his comments identify the Kray twins and Margaret Thatcher among the historical figures treated this way.

There is another, rather less politically charged use. AI was also used to generate mice running around The Sun newsroom.

Boyle is treating AI as a visual-effects tool

His argument is narrower than the usual grand claims surrounding generative filmmaking. Boyle describes AI as useful when it is handled respectfully and says performers should be paid when their likeness is replaced or reproduced through an artificial embodiment.

That places the technology closer to an additional VFX process than to an attempt to rebuild an entire production pipeline around generation. In Ink, the resulting material occupies only a tiny fraction of the running time.

The animal work also connects to Boyle’s own history. He has spoken about the criticism that followed the use of real chimpanzees in the opening of 28 Days Later and his subsequent preference for digital alternatives. Ink extends that logic to AI-generated mice.

A strangely appropriate experiment for a film about media disruption

Ink is adapted by James Graham from his stage play and follows Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of The Sun in 1969 and editor Larry Lamb’s transformation of the newspaper. Guy Pearce plays Murdoch, Jack O’Connell plays Lamb, and Claire Foy co-stars.

That gives Boyle’s technological choice an odd extra layer. Ink is a film about a media business learning how to exploit a new model of attention while the film industry itself is arguing over another disruptive tool.

The difference, at least in this production, is scale. Boyle is not presenting AI as the machinery behind Ink. It is a small intervention inside a conventionally produced feature.

The 116-minute film opened the 83rd Venice International Film Festival in competition. Netflix has announced a Dec. 11, 2026 selected-theater release in the United States, followed by streaming in the US and Latin America on Jan. 8, 2027.