Netflix has dropped the official trailer for the new series Painkiller. Starring Matthew Broderick and Uzo Aduba, the series is inspired by the real-life opioid crisis that has plagued America in recent years. The limited series will premiere on Netflix on Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. For now, you can get a sneak peek at the show by watching the brand new trailer below.
Per the synopsis, Painkiller is a fictionalized retelling of events that “explores some of the origins and aftermath of the opioid crisis in America, highlighting the stories of the perpetrators, victims, and truth-seekers whose lives are forever altered by the invention of OxyContin. [It is an] examination of crime, accountability, and the systems that have repeatedly failed hundreds of thousands of Americans.”
Painkiller is based on the book Pain Killer by Barry Meier and the New Yorker Magazine article “The Family That Built the Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keefe. The limited series is directed by Pete Berg created by showrunners and writers Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster. Berg, Fitzerman-Blue, and Harpster also executive produced with Eric Newman and Alex Gibney.
Featuring a strong cast, the series stars Broderick and Aduba alongside Taylor Kitsch, Dina Shihabi, West Duchovny, and John Rothman. Guest stars for the series include Clark Gregg, Jack Mulhern, Sam Anderson, Ana Cruz Kayne, Brian Markinson, Noah Harpster, John Ales, Johnny Sneed, Tyler Ritter, and Carolina Bartczak.
Painkiller Provides a Scripted Take on the Opioid Epidemic
“Everyone knows that the opioid crisis is bad,” Berg says of the series, via Netflix’s TUDUM. “But this is the origin story of the collision between medicine and money that allowed it to happen. One of the many things that I thought was missing [from the conversation about OxyContin] was the introduction of the drug into mainstream medicine. How Arthur Sackler, this psychiatrist from New York who specialized in lobotomies, started to realize that the future was in pills — specifically in advertising pills. Whoever could market their drug better was going to make the most money.”
Stressing how serious the subject matter is, despite some comedic moments in the series, Berg added, “We wanted to make sure people knew upfront that there might be some farcical moments in this show, but that we don’t think there’s anything remotely funny about the Sackler family, Purdue and the opioid crisis.”
Executive producer Eric Newman also explained how relevant the series is, given how the epidemic is still ongoing. Newman doesn’t predict that this will end anytime soon, noting that this is a story that’s “so big and so awful that it deserves to be told as often and as loudly as it can be.”
“We wanted to mirror the effects of opioids: the warmth and the hope and the relief of taking a pill that’s going to deliver you from your suffering and then watching it become suffering,” continued Newman.
Painkiller is set to premiere on Netflix on Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023.
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