Netflix has dropped a trailer for Painkiller, the upcoming Netflix limited series based on Barry Meier’s Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic and Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain.”
Meier’s book and Keefe’s article both tell the story of how Purdue Pharma, the company founded by the Sackler family, introduced and marketed OxyContin, a painkiller that contributed to the American opioid epidemic. Keefe expanded on his article with the 2021 book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty.
The miniseries, directed by Peter Berg (Wonderland, Friday Night Lights), stars Matthew Broderick as Richard Sackler, the former chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, and Uzo Aduba as a U.S. Attorney’s office investigator looking into Purdue’s role in the opioid crisis.
In the trailer, Broderick as Sackler says, “All of human behavior is essentially comprised of two things: run from pain, run toward pleasure … If we place ourselves right there between pain and pleasure, we will never have to worry about money again.”
Another scene depicts Broderick, wearing sunglasses indoors, telling a crowd that Oxycontin “is now the No. 1 opioid in the country.” Later in the trailer, a frustrated and angry Aduba as Edie tells Broderick, “Richard Sackler, you are a—you did a good job making all that money, sir.”
Painkiller, which also stars Sam Anderson, Taylor Kitsch, and Carolina Bartczak, is set to premiere on Netflix on Oct. 10.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
