Danny Boyle Says Ink Uses About 30 Seconds of Generative AI - for Old Photos and Newsroom Mice

Danny Boyle says his Rupert Murdoch drama Ink contains about 30 seconds of generative AI, used to animate old photographs and create mice.

Boyle gave the figure in a video interview with Vanity Fair recorded at the Telluride Film Festival, according to TheWrap's J. Kim Murphy, who reported the remarks on September 5, 2026.

Boyle's view carries weight because of where Ink sits. Boyle won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, and TheWrap notes that Ink has been tipped as an awards contender since it was named the opening-night film of this year's Venice Film Festival. Adapted from James Graham's play about the early years of The Sun, Ink stars Jack O'Connell as editor Larry Lamb and Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch, per a Total Film piece syndicated by Yahoo, alongside Claire Foy.

"There's about 30 seconds of it in our movie, where we animate a couple of old photographs, which you'll have seen online the way that it does that - that you can bring old photographs to life. And that's the kind of way we use it," Boyle told Vanity Fair, as quoted by TheWrap.

The second use is animals. Boyle said AI-made mice run around The Sun's newsroom in Ink, and he traced the choice back to 2002's 28 Days Later. PETA wrote to him after he used real chimpanzees at the start of that film, he said, and he has tried to use computer-generated animals ever since. AI, he added, is very good at creating them.

On the wider question, Boyle called AI "a very useful tool" with two conditions attached: that filmmakers use it respectfully, and that actors get paid if an AI version replaces them. He compared that kind of use to animation or to one more item in the visual effects toolbox.

Boyle did not name the AI tools or vendors behind the 30 seconds in any of the quotes relayed by the outlets read for this story. A Netflix representative did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for comment.

Which Shots in Ink Use AI?

Boyle did not say which photographs were animated. VP Land, summarising a Deadline report, says festival viewers had already questioned reanimated images that appear to show the Kray twins and Margaret Thatcher. That identification is unconfirmed.

Accounts also differ on disclosure. Total Film writes that Ink's credits disclose the use of generative AI. VP Land says that claim came from viewers on social media and that the production did not confirm it to Deadline.

Not everyone accepted Boyle's framing. The same Total Film piece asks why a VFX studio could not have animated the photographs and built the mice, and whether the artists AI stood in for were compensated the way Boyle says actors should be.

This isn't the first time AI has followed a film into awards season. TheWrap points to A24's The Brutalist, whose director Brady Corbet confirmed AI was used to alter Hungarian dialogue, and says unsourced rumors then wrongly claimed the technology had been used in other departments. Boyle's statement leaves less room for that: a specific duration and two named uses, on camera, about three months before Ink reaches theaters.

For creators, the two uses Boyle describes are familiar ones. Bringing a still photograph to life and generating a short animal insert are common image-to-video jobs, and Ink could show whether they can sit inside a prestige feature when the director says so plainly.

Netflix releases Ink in select theaters on December 11, 2026, with streaming to follow on January 8, 2027, according to TheWrap. Vanity Fair posted the interview video on X, and TheWrap's report links to it.