‘Painkiller’ Trailer: Uzo Aduba Fights Matthew Broderick Pharma Exec in Opioid Crisis Drama (VIDEO)

Kelli Boyle July 11, 2023, 11:06 am

Netflix tracks the origins of the U.S. opioid crisis in Painkiller, a limited drama series premiering Thursday, August 10.

The six-episode season stars Matthew Broderick as a big pharma executive who pushes OxyContin on the medical community for his financial gain while Uzo Aduba plays an investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s office fighting to bring the creators of this deadly crisis to heel. Taylor Kitsch also stars as a working-class American who develops an opioid addiction that throws his life into chaos. See the crisis unfold in the trailer above.

“A fictionalized telling of events, Painkiller … explores some of the origins and aftermath of the opioid crisis in America, highlighting the stories of perpetrators, victims, and truth-seekers whose lives are forever altered by the invention of OxyContin,” according to Netflix. “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 an Empire of Pain’ by Patrick Radden Keefe.”

The series (and trailer) zeroes in on Purdue Pharma, at which Broderick’s Richard Sackler is a lead executive. He tells his colleagues they won’t ever have to worry about money again if they market OxyContin as the solution to pain. Dina Shihabi (Britt) and West Duchovny (Shannon) play pharma sales reps who live a lush life thanks to their successful medical sales, but the bill comes due for Purdue, Britt, and Shannon as Aduba’s Edie attempts to hold them accountable for the unquantifiable harm they caused.

Matthew Broderick as Richard Sackler (Credit: Keri Anderson/Netflix)

Clark Gregg, Jack Mulhern, Sam Anderson, Ana Cruz Kayne, Brian Markinson, Noah Harpster, John Ales, Johnny Sneed, Tyler Ritter, and Carolina Bartczak guest star in the series, directed by documentarian Pete Berg. Each episode clocks in at one hour.

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“Everyone knows that the opioid crisis is bad,” Berg told 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.”

Painkiller is executive produced by Eric Newman, Pete Berg, Alex Gibney, and showrunners/creators Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster. Filmed in Toronto, Pain Killer author Meier serves as consulting producer. The New Yorker article writer Radden Keefe serves as executive producer.

Dive into photos from the series below.