‘Pain Hustlers’ releases in select theaters on Oct. 20 before it begins streaming on Netflix Oct. 27
Emily Blunt and Chris Evans are teaming up for their latest movie.
On Tuesday, Netflix released a new trailer for its upcoming drama Pain Hustlers, a movie based on real-life events that follows Blunt, 40, and Evans, 42, as pharmaceutical sales representatives selling opioids.
The trailer meets Blunt’s character Liza Drake, seeking to improve her financial situation and her daughter’s life, as she meets with Evans’ Pete Brenner for a job interview. Liza convinces Pete to give her a job at his sales company and quickly teaches her that commissions on selling drug prescriptions are the key to making money in that industry.
Liza succeeds quickly in the industry and begins recruiting her own employees, but as she and Pete rake in more money, the FBI appears to investigate — and Liza herself begins to question whether she is doing the right thing morally.
An official synopsis for the film describes Liza as “a blue-collar single mom who has just lost her job and is at the end of her rope.”
“A chance meeting with pharmaceutical sales rep Pete Brenner puts her on an upwards trajectory economically but dubious path ethically as she becomes entangled in a dangerous racketeering scheme,” the synopsis reads. “Dealing with her increasingly unhinged boss (Andy Garcia), the worsening medical condition of her daughter (Chloe Coleman) and a growing awareness of the devastation the company is causing forces Liza to examine her choices.”
Netflix described the film as a “sharp and revealing look at what some people do out of desperation and others do out of greed” in a synopsis.
Pain Hustlers is directed by David Yates, who directed the final four Harry Potter films and the Fantastic Beasts spinoffs. Screenwriter Wells Tower wrote the movie’s screenplay, based on Evan Hughes’s 2018 article published in The New York Times Magazine and the subsequent book Pain Hustlers: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup.
Netflix secured worldwide distribution rights to the new movie at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Aside from Blunt, Evans, Garcia and Coleman, the new film also features performances from Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy James, Amit Shah, Aubrey Dollar, Willie Raysor and Andy Garcia.
Pain Hustlers will release in select theaters on Oct. 20 before it begins streaming on Netflix Oct. 27.