With all shows and movies based on true events, there is a disclaimer making it clear that what you are about to watch has been adapted and dramatized. For many projects, this message is important to let audiences know that everything they see isn’t always the truth. In Netflix's latest show on the 2023 TV schedule, Painkiller, which documents the rise and consequences of OxyContin, these disclaimers aren’t just text on screen. They are read by families who have lost loved ones to addiction, and the producers explained to CinemaBlend why they made that decision.
At the beginning of each Painkiller episode, a disclaimer is read by one or two people who have lost a loved one to OxyContin and have been impacted by the opioid epidemic. For example, in Episode 1, Jennifer Trejo-Adams, a mother who lost her son Christopher to a long battle with addiction, notes that moments in the show are fictionalized. Then she says “what wasn’t fictionalized” and proceeds to tell the story about how her son died in a parking lot after years of addiction. At the end, she gets emotional and starts to cry, which happens in most of the disclaimers throughout the season. It’s moving, quite powerful and it shows the audience the real-world implications of Purdue Pharma and drug addiction.
Executive producer, Eric Newman elaborated on these disclaimers, and explained why they were a challenge, and why they decided to have family members read them, rather than simply putting text on the screen. He told CinemaBlend:
When it came time to do those, which would have just been text on the screen, we really struggled. [Peter Berg] and I had a lot of conversations about ‘How do we do this in a way that doesn't let the perpetrators off the hook right off the bat?’ And [Peter Berg] had a really inspired idea, which was, ‘Why don't we have the parents or anyone who lost a loved one, it ended up being a lot of parents, to OxyContin-related opioid overdose.’
Newman also noted that they didn’t want to let Purdue and Richard Sackler “off the hook” while speaking with the LA Times, and he said Netflix’s legal team was on board with the idea for the disclaimers. This led to him and the show’s director Peter Berg going out to film the clips, and the producer said that while it was “hard” to produce, it was “really effective.”
So we went and we found, fortunately, there is no shortage of people who have lost a loved one, and a child particularly to this, and we found this amazing group of people who wanted to be a part of something that tells the story. And, you know, many times in memory of their children wanting other parents to know that this is real, it happened and they're really effective, and they were incredibly hard, personally speaking, to produce. You know, to go into these homes, many of which are shrines to these children. It's it was pretty moving, and I'm glad that it was effective for you, I think it'll be very effective with viewers to remind people that there is a real human cost to this.
Painkiller is a book-to-screen adaptation of Barry Meier's Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic and a New Yorker article by Patrick Radden Keefe called “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain.” Meier served as a consulting producer on the Netflix series, and was also moved by the testimonials and disclaimer at the start of each episode. He told me:
When Eric and Pete Berg showed me what they had done, I was totally blown away. You know, I was totally moved. And as you mentioned, it adds a power to the story that would otherwise not be there.
While speaking with the two producers, I noted that I was incredibly moved by these testimonials, and it really helped ground the series, and show the real-world consequences of OxyContin.
Each clip is emotional and feels very raw and candid. As Newman said, they were hard to film, but also extremely important, and the families wanted to help. Overall, not only are these clips the show's required disclaimer, they are also an effective way to show just how many people have been impacted by OxyContin and drug addiction.
If you are interested in watching Painkiller, which just premiered on Netflix’s TV schedule, you can stream it right now with a Netflix subscription.
