Netflix paid $50 million for Emily Blunt’s “Pain Hustlers,” the largest deal at Cannes. The film has been described as a cross between The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street, but is more like a Dopesick spinoff in terms of plot:
“Liza Drake (Blount), a single mother who didn’t finish high school, finds a job at a start-up pharmaceutical company in a rundown area of central Florida in order to make a decent living. The courage and the spirit of Saburo managed to break into the top of the company, and then found himself involved in a deadly conspiracy.”
Sounds like the stereotypical story of a female pharmacist who sells painkillers successfully uncovering the dark side of medicine, only with Emily Blunt (Tomorrow’s War, A Quiet Place, Jungle Trek) instead. The screenplay was adapted by Wells Tower and directed by David Yates (left), who had filmed Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.
“Pain Hustlers,” which will start filming at the end of August, is good news for Netflix, whose stock price has plummeted due to subscriber losses.
In addition, the new film “Downton Abbey 2” lost to “Doctor Who 2”, which was released for three weeks, and its premiere performance ranked second in the weekly box office list. It made just $1 million at the box office on Thursday, and is expected to gross around $18 million in its opening week.
The movie version of “Downton Abbey” released in 2019 won $190 million worldwide, but that was the old calendar before the epidemic, and it is unrealistic to expect the sequel to achieve greater success. The film has a first-class reputation, but its overseas premiere is currently only $29 million.
