Michael Keaton stars as a small-town doctor in US opioid crisis drama Dopesick adapted from the international bestselling book by journalist Beth Macy, Dopesick: Dealers Doctors and The Drug Company that Addicted America, originally published in the UK by Head of Zeus in 2018 and re-issued in a new-look paperback 11th November 2021.
The eight-part original series will premiere exclusively on Disney+ on Friday November 12 in the UK & Ireland and stars Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Kaitlyn Dever and Rosario Dawson. The series was adapted by Emmy-winner Danny Strong (“Empire,” “Recount,” “Game Change”) and directed by Oscar®-winner Barry Levinson (“Paterno,” “Rain Man”).
Adapted from Beth Macy’s 2018 book of the same name, Dopesick reveals the disturbing truth behind America's opioid crisis and explains how a nation has become enslaved to prescription drugs.
This powerful and moving story explains how a large corporation, Purdue, encouraged small town doctors to prescribe OxyContin to a country already awash in painkillers. The drug's dangerously addictive nature was hidden, whilst many used it as an escape, to numb the pain of joblessness and the need to pay the bills. Macy tries to answer a grieving mother's question – why her only son died – and comes away with a harrowing tale of greed and need.
Beth Macy is the author of the widely acclaimed and bestselling books Truevine and Factory Man. Based in Roanoke, Virginia for three decades, her reporting has won more than a dozen national awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard.