Michael Keaton & Peter Sarsgaard To Star In Limited Series ‘Dopesick’ For Hulu
Hulu has cast Michael Keaton and Peter Sarsgaard to star in ‘Dopesick‘, an eight-episode limited series based on Beth Macy’s bestselling book, it has been announced.
‘Dopesick’ is an ambitious, harrowing and compelling look into the epicentre of America’s struggle with opioid addiction. It takes viewers from a distressed Virginia mining community to the hallways of the DEA and to the opulence of “one-percenter” Big Pharma Manhattan. The unsparing yet deeply human portraits of the various affected families and their intersecting stories hold up a mirror to where America is right now while shining a hopeful light on the heroes battling the worst drug epidemic in American history.
Keaton is set to play Samuel Finnix, an old-school doctor who approaches his practice with kindness and compassion, but finds himself embroiled in Big Pharma’s deadly secret. Sarsgaard will play Rick Mountcastle, an Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the Purdue Pharma case.
The series comes from ‘Empire’ co-creator/exec producer (and former ‘Buffy’ star) Danny Strong, alongside ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ executive producer Warren Littlefield, with Touchstone Television producing.
Michael Keaton is well known for his roles in films such as ‘Birdman’, ‘Beetlejuice’, ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ and of course, playing Batman/Bruce Wayne in the Tim Burton era movies. He is due to reprise his role as The Bat in ‘The Flash’ film, which appears to be based around the ‘Flashpoint’ comic book story, and see Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen mess up the timeline (as he tends to do), so will also feature Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
In an interesting twist of fate, Peter Sarsgaard also has a Batman connection, as he is due to play District Attorney Gil Colson in Matt Reeves ‘The Batman’ starring Robert Pattinson. On a side note, he’s also married to Maggie Gyllenhaal, who played Rachel Dawes in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’… It seems there is no escaping Batman! He has previously starred in ‘The Looming Tower’ miniseries and ‘The Killing’ on tv, along with the movies ‘Green Lantern’, ‘Black Mass’, ‘Jarhead’ and ‘The Sound of Silence’.
Barry Levinson (‘Rain Man’, ‘The Wizard of Lies’, ‘Wag the Dog’) is set to direct and exec produce alongside Strong, Littlefield, and John Goldwyn (‘Dexter’), with Macy and Karen Rosenfelt (‘Twilight’).
‘Dopesick‘ will premiere on Hulu in the USA in 2021. Still too early for a UK broadcaster, but we’ll let you know when we hear something.
