Michael Keaton is ready to shine a spotlight on the dark origin story of America's opioid crisis.
We're, of course, referring to the Oscar-nominated actor's new drama for Hulu, Dopesick, which examines how the country's worst drug epidemic came to be. Inspired by Beth Macy's New York Times bestselling book, the highly anticipated series follows the introduction of Oxycontin as a less addictive alternative for pain treatment, and the effects this false promise had on a mining community, Big Pharma and the DEA.
"I know most people don't think about us up there in the mountains," Dr. Samuel Finnix (Keaton) says at the start of the new trailer, released Sept. 15. "Many of my patients are miners. It's dangerous work, and they carry the burden of building this nation on their backs. They're in pain."
As footage shows Dr. Finnix treating members of his small-town community, he adds, "My people trusted me. I can't believe how many of them are dead now."
Thankfully, Dr. Finnix isn't the only one calling out the drug, as public figures in D.C. have also caught on to the situation. "We've begun looking at something that could be big," Peter Sarsgaard as attorney Rick Mountcastle notes. "Purdue Pharma, they've been marketing the drug as something that's non-addictive, when it clearly is."
Cut to multiple voiceovers claiming that "less than one percent" would become addicted. As a national catastrophe grows, the effectiveness of the drug is finally called into question.
"This is not our fault," Michael Stuhlbarg as former Purdue Pharma president and chairman Richard Sackler hits back. "These people want to be addicted."
Dopesick also stars Kaitlyn Dever, Will Poulter, John Hoogenakker, Rosario Dawson, Jake McDorman and Phillipa Soo.
Watch the eye-opening trailer for yourself above.
Dopesick premieres Oct. 13 on Hulu.