Paradise Lost, Headlines Won: Netflix Unveils Trailers for “East of Eden” & “Ink”
Two of Netflix’s marquee titles have recently released trailers: Zoe Kazan’s ambitious adaptation of John Steinbeck’s biblical epic East of Eden, and Danny Boyle’s adaptation of James Graham’s play Ink, about Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of London’s “The Sun” and his partnership with editor Larry Lamb in the late 60s and early 70s. These are meaty projects in entirely different ways, of course, but they both boast big-name creators and directors, stars, and top-flight creative talent behind the camera. Let’s have a look.
East of Eden
Weighing in at roughly a quarter of a million words and running between 601 and 656 pages depending upon the edition, no one would accuse John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” of being a beach read. And yet the wild thing about Steinbeck’s sprawling tale tracking two families across multiple generations is that it’s compulsively readable. The story of the Hamiltons, immigrant pioneers from Ireland who make their way to California and are firmly rooted in both the soil and the heart, and the Trasks, a family haunted by a terrifying, accomplished father’s psychological cruelty and his final gift of mysterious wealth, is filled with drama. It’s also exquisitely wrought, with passages that detail California’s often Edenic natural beauty and the punishing torment of the human soul. In short, it’s a magisterial epic that miraculously manages to be a very delightful read.
“East of Eden” also features one of 20th-century literature’s most beguiling creations, Cathy Ames, a beautiful, haunted woman who, in today’s parlance, would be described as a narcissistic sociopath. The lengths Cathy goes to in freeing herself from what she sees as a controlling, ever-deceitful world give the story its ferocious heart. The trailer leans into Cathy’s role as the narrative’s unknowable terror. “Evil is not always apparent at first glance,” Cathy narrates. “It can come cloaked in goodness or beauty or love. The heart of our oldest stories.”
In Kazan’s adaptation, the most notable casting coup is that Florence Pugh is playing Cathy. That alone is enough to establish East of Eden as must-watch material when it debuts on Netflix on October 1. The family that Cathy detonates is the Trasks, with the brothers Charles and Adam played by Mike Faist and Christopher Abbott, respectively. It’s Cathy’s relationship with Adam that will have ripple effects for generations. Ciarán Hinds plays the Irish immigrant Samuel Hamilton, the story’s overabundant soul, a dreamer and a tinkerer who provides Adam and his servant, Lee, played by Hoon Lee, with much-needed friendship and guidance. Martha Plimpton plays Faye, a brothel owner whose kindness might be the key to her damnation.
Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” is rightly considered one of the 20th century’s masterpieces. Kazan’s adaptation, in which she wrote all but one of the 8 episodes, figures to be one of fall’s most anticipated new series.
Ink
In James Graham’s play “Ink,” a young Australian media mogul named Rupert Murdoch purchases an old, failing newspaper in 1969 London called The Sun. The rest is, quite literally, world history.
But Graham’s interested in Murdoch’s rise from Australia to the London tabloid scene, where he hires the ruthless, working-class journalist Larry Lamb to send a shockwave through the buttoned-up British media landscape and create a tabloid the likes of which the country has never seen before. Lamb sets out to hire a team of morally and ethically flexible journalists who will topple the established broadsheets by focusing on topics the public will eat up—scandal, sex, and sports.
Boyle’s film adaptation is based on Graham’s script. With Boyle at the helm, Graham’s play becomes a fast-paced, punk-infused stomp through the gutters of journalism. Rising star Jack O’Connell, recently such a demented delight in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, plays Larry Lamb. His performance, The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw says, is “muscular and pugnacious as a working-class reporter made good.” Guy Pearce takes on the role of Rupert Murdoch (to the apparent satisfaction of Murdoch himself), and Claire Foy plays Joyce Hopkirk, Lamb’s first Women’s Editor. New York Magazine‘s Bilge Ebiri wrote, “While it doesn’t go for overt condemnation, the film makes it abundantly clear that the events it depicts ultimately gave birth to the solipsistic, techno-feudal morass of our present moment. It’ll infuriate many, but it might also be a masterpiece.”
Ink had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 2. Ink will be released in select U.S. theaters on December 11.
Featured image: L-r: East of Eden. Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in episode 104 of East of Eden. Cr. Geoffrey Short/Netflix © 2026; INK. Jack O’Connell as Lamb in Ink. Cr. Anthony Dickenson © 2026.
