1
THE INHERITANCE
INT. GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA — DAY (1949)
A privileged boarding school. YOUNG RUPERT MURDOCH, 18, sits in the headmaster's office. He has been called out of class. A HOUSEMASTER stands behind him, looking uncomfortable.
Headmaster
Rupert. I'm sorry to tell you. Your father has died.
Young Rupert does not cry. He stares at the headmaster's desk. His jaw tightens. In this moment, a boy becomes a man and a man becomes a mogul.
Young Rupert
(after a long pause)
What happens to the newspaper?
Headmaster
(taken aback)
I — I imagine the board will decide —
Young Rupert
The board will decide nothing. The Adelaide News is mine. My father built it. I will run it.
Headmaster
You are eighteen years old.
Young Rupert
Old enough.
CUT TO:
INT. THE ADELAIDE NEWS, NEWSROOM — DAY (1953)
Rupert, now 22, has returned from Oxford. He strides through the newsroom of the Adelaide News — a small, struggling daily. JOURNALISTS look up. Many are twice his age. He takes his father's chair.
Rupert
The circulation is dropping. The advertisers are leaving. The editorial is boring. From today, front page stories must make people stop on the street. Scandals, crime, sport — I want the news that people actually read, not the news they pretend to read.
Senior Editor
Your father ran a respectable paper, Mr. Murdoch.
Rupert
My father ran a dying paper. Respectability doesn't pay the printers. Readers do.
Everyone in the media business pretends they're in the truth business. They're not. They're in the attention business. Whoever commands attention commands everything — advertising revenue, political influence, cultural power. My father understood this. He just didn't have the stomach for it. I did.
INT. FLEET STREET, LONDON — THE SUN NEWSROOM — DAY (1969)
Murdoch buys The Sun and The News of the World — Britain's most widely read newspapers
Rupert, now 38, stands in the newsroom of The Sun, newly acquired. He holds up the front page — a dull broadsheet design.
Rupert
This looks like a funeral announcement. I want bold headlines. Big photographs. Short sentences. And starting Monday — Page Three.
Editor
Page Three, sir?
Rupert
A photograph of a beautiful woman. Every day. The readers will love it. The feminists will hate it. Both reactions sell newspapers.
The Sun's circulation doubles within a year. Then triples. Rupert Murdoch has discovered the formula that will power his empire: give the masses what they want, not what the elite thinks they should want.
2
THE FOX
INT. 20TH CENTURY FOX STUDIOS, LOS ANGELES — DAY (1985)
Murdoch buys 20th Century Fox and launches the Fox Broadcasting Company — America's fourth network
Rupert walks through the legendary Fox lot. Sound stages where Marilyn Monroe filmed, where Star Wars was born. He has just become an American citizen to comply with broadcasting laws. Australia is behind him.
Rupert
(to his lieutenant)
The three networks — ABC, NBC, CBS — have had this country to themselves for forty years. They're lazy. They're complacent. They program for the coastal elite. Half of America feels ignored. I will build a network for the other half.
INT. FOX NEWS LAUNCH, NEW YORK — DAY (OCTOBER 7, 1996)
A modest studio. ROGER AILES, portly, aggressive, brilliant, sits in the control room. Rupert stands behind him. On the monitors, the first Fox News broadcast flickers to life. The slogan: "Fair and Balanced."
Ailes
CNN has owned cable news for sixteen years. They think they're unbeatable. But they're biased to the left and they don't even know it. We're going to give conservatives a home.
Rupert
Not just conservatives. Anyone who feels the mainstream media talks down to them. The truck driver. The small business owner. The veteran. They are our audience.
Ailes
How long until we overtake CNN?
Rupert
Five years.
It took six. By 2002, Fox News was the most-watched cable news network in America. It remained so for twenty consecutive years.
INT. RUPERT'S OFFICE, NEWS CORP HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK — NIGHT
Rupert sits alone at his desk. On the wall behind him: front pages from his newspapers across the world — The Sun, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Australian. Television monitors show Fox News, Sky News, Star TV. He controls more of the world's media than any single person in history.
People say I have too much power. They're wrong. I don't have power. I have influence. Power is a gun. Influence is a front page. A gun can force someone to do something. A front page can make them want to do it. That is the difference, and it is the reason politicians return my calls.
3
THE SCANDAL
INT. BRITISH PARLIAMENT, SELECT COMMITTEE HEARING — DAY (JULY 19, 2011)
The phone hacking scandal — News of the World journalists illegally accessed the voicemails of thousands, including a murdered schoolgirl
Rupert, now 80, sits before a parliamentary committee. Behind him, JAMES MURDOCH. The room is packed. Cameras flash. For the first time in his career, Rupert Murdoch looks old.
MP Tom Watson
Mr. Murdoch, do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this fiasco?
Rupert
(quiet, halting)
No... I feel that the people I trusted — I am not saying who — let me down. And I think they behaved disgracefully, and it is for them to pay.
MP Watson
This is the most humble day of your career?
Rupert
The most humble day of my life.
Suddenly, a PROTESTER lunges from the gallery and throws a foam pie at Rupert. His wife WENDI DENG leaps up and slaps the attacker. The room descends into chaos. Rupert sits motionless, cream dripping from his jacket. The image is broadcast worldwide.
INT. NEWS INTERNATIONAL OFFICES, LONDON — NIGHT
REBEKAH BROOKS, red-haired, defiant, stands in her office surrounded by boxes. She has resigned as CEO of News International. Police are investigating. The News of the World — 168 years old — has been shut down.
Rebekah
Rupert, I'm sorry. I swear I didn't know about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.
Rupert
(on the phone)
I believe you, Rebekah. But believing you and saving you are two different things. The company comes first. It always comes first.
He hangs up. He stares at the wall. One hundred and sixty-eight years of the News of the World — gone in a week. He made the call to shut it down himself.
INT. MURDOCH FAMILY HOME, NEW YORK — EVENING
Rupert sits across from his sons, LACHLAN and JAMES. The tension is palpable. James ran the British operations during the hacking scandal. Lachlan stayed away. The brothers are as different as Cain and Abel.
James
We need to change, Dad. The culture at News Corp — the bullying, the win-at-all-costs mentality — it led directly to phone hacking. We need reform.
Lachlan
What we need is to stop apologizing and start fighting. The left-wing media is using this scandal to destroy us. We don't reform. We counterattack.
Rupert
(looking between them)
One of you sounds like your mother. The other sounds like me.
Neither son asks which is which. They already know.
4
SUCCESSION
INT. FOX NEWS HEADQUARTERS — DAY (2023)
Fox News settles the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million
Rupert, now 92, walks through the Fox News building. Staff part before him. He moves slowly but his eyes miss nothing. On screens, the settlement coverage plays.
Rupert
(to Lachlan)
Three-quarters of a billion dollars. For broadcasting lies about an election we knew were lies. Roger would have known how to handle this. Roger would have —
He stops himself. Roger Ailes is dead. The old guard is gone.
Lachlan
It's done, Dad. We settled. We move on.
Rupert
We move on. That is what I have done my entire life. The Adelaide News — move on. Fleet Street — move on. Fox — move on. Four marriages — move on. But at some point, Lachlan, you stop moving on and you start moving out.
INT. MURDOCH FAMILY TRUST MEETING — DAY (2023)
Murdoch attempts to change the family trust to give Lachlan sole control. His other children challenge the move in court.
A conference table. Lawyers line both sides. On one side: Rupert and Lachlan. On the other, virtually: JAMES, ELISABETH, and PRUDENCE MURDOCH. The family trust controls voting shares in both News Corp and Fox. It is the nuclear weapon of media power.
James
(via video)
Dad, you can't change the trust to give Lachlan sole control. The trust was designed to give all four of us equal voice after your death. That was the agreement.
Rupert
Agreements change when circumstances change. Lachlan is the only one of you willing to run the company the way it needs to be run.
Elisabeth
(via video)
The way it needs to be run, or the way you want it run? Fox News has become something you wouldn't recognize, Dad. It's not journalism. It's not even entertainment. It's — it's a weapon.
Rupert
(sharp)
It's the most profitable weapon in media. And I built it. And I will decide who inherits it.
EXT. MURDOCH'S VINEYARD, BEALIEU, CALIFORNIA — SUNSET
Rupert walks alone through his vineyard. The sun sets over the rolling hills. He carries a glass of wine but does not drink it. He is thinking.
They made a television show about my family. "Succession," they called it. I watched every episode. They got some of it right. The ambition. The cruelty. The loneliness. But they missed the essential thing — the love. I love my children. All of them. Even the ones who hate what I've built. Especially the ones who hate what I've built. Because they are the only ones paying attention.
INT. RUPERT'S STUDY — NIGHT
Rupert sits in a leather chair. Around him, framed front pages from seventy years of newspapers. His first edition of the Adelaide News. The Sun's most famous headlines. The Wall Street Journal's acquisition announcement. He picks up a reading glass and examines the Adelaide News — the paper his father left him, the paper that started everything.
Rupert
(quietly, to the photograph of his father on the desk)
You left me one newspaper, Dad. One newspaper and a continent of ambition. I turned it into an empire that spans the world. Presidents and prime ministers call me for advice. I helped elect them. I helped destroy them. I changed the way the world receives information.
He sets down the reading glass.
Rupert
And now my children will fight over it. Just as I fought for it. That is the Murdoch way. We do not pass things gently. We make the next generation earn it.
He turns off the desk lamp. The room goes dark except for the glow of a television in the corner — tuned, of course, to Fox News.
Rupert Murdoch stepped down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp in November 2023 at the age of 92. His son Lachlan assumed control. The family trust dispute over the future direction of the Murdoch media empire continued in court. At its peak, Murdoch's media properties reached an estimated 4.7 billion people worldwide. He married for the fifth time in 2024.
FADE OUT.