A fictionalized retelling of events, Netflix (NASDAQ: 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 …