Netflix Is Taking On The Opioid Crisis And Billionaire Sackler Family In New Series 'Painkiller'

A fictionalized retelling of events, Netflix NFLX upcoming series "Painkiller" is a scripted limited series that explores some of the origins and aftermath of the opioid crisis in the United States which, as of November 2021, has resulted in 106,000 overdose deaths - a massive surge from a year earlier. 

The new series tells the stories of the perpetrators, victims and truth-seekers, whose lives have all been altered by the addictive pain medication OxyContin. 

Directed by the executive producer Peter Berg, the series focuses specifically on the actions of Purdue Pharma, which created OxyContin, and even more specifically on Richard Sackler (played by Matthew Broderick), the main man behind Purdue, reported Entertainment Weekly (EW). 

Based on Patrick Radden Keefe's shocking 2017 New Yorker article "The Family That Build an Empire of Pain," and Barry Meier's book, "Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic," the series will follow a number of people involved in the early days of the crisis, from the Sacklers to the regular people trying to take them down. 

"So much of this show is the conviction of a group of people," executive producer Eric Newman told EW.  

The series also follows several medical sales reps in the pay of Purdue Pharma whose job is to convince doctors to prescribe more of their drug. "Painkiller" follows individuals who became addicted to opioids after their doctor told them it was safe, because their doctors were told it was. Indeed, inappropriate prescribing of opioids was given as one of the major causes of U.S. overdoses, according to the office of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"The common variable and where the great sin is in this is that no one knew," Newman says. "They're like, 'I had a doctor telling me to do it and if you need more, take more.' It's really one of the great betrayals of public trust in history. A cornerstone of Purdue's marketing approach was, 'Let's play to the doctors because doctors are the people that the patients trust.' It's so insidious." 

Not The First Series On The Topic

But this isn't the first time this story has been told. In 2021, Hulu premiered Dopesick, which also followed the early days of the opioid crisis. "It's something that we had to consider, being the second one," Newman said. "But my hope is that, though we cover some of the same ground, it's not a lot of the same ground, and certainly tonally, we're very different."

"Painkiller" is scheduled to stream on August 10.

Photo: Netflix