Boyle Used AI to Put Thatcher in 'Ink' Without Estate Permission — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- "28 Years Later 3" is "on the back burner," with Danny Boyle saying Alex Garland has written a "fantastic script" but financing is needed and Garland is busy on A24's "Elden Ring" adaptation.
- Boyle's new film "Ink" uses AI to face-swap Margaret Thatcher onto an actor depicting her documented late-night whisky visits to Sun editor Larry Lamb in late-1960s England.
- Boyle said he deliberately declined to ask the Thatcher estate for permission, arguing that estates of figures like Thatcher "shouldn't have control over our ability to insist on ideas in art about her influence on our lives."
- Boyle said he was "very careful" with AI on the film so it "didn't place anyone," describing the Thatcher face-swap as a justified exception rather than the use of an imitator.
- The remarks came during a wide-ranging BFI London Film Festival conversation between Boyle and Puck's Matt Belloni that spanned Boyle's career and AI's growing role in filmmaking.
Why it matters: Boyle's choice to AI-revive Thatcher without estate sign-off crystallizes the legal and ethical fight over depicting the deceased in film, while an indefinite "28 Years Later 3" delay shows that even a finished Garland script can't clear the starting line until financing is locked.
Ask SkimNews
