CLIFTON FORGE, Va. – Editors are putting the finishing touches on “Dopesick,” the Hulu miniseries based on the book written by local author Beth Macy. She helped write the series and the trailer just dropped last week, creating a whole lot of buzz.
Five million people have watched the Dopesick trailer, premiering in October. The miniseries is about America’s opioid crisis and draws from stories in our area.
“Warren Littlefield one of the producers said that at the beginning, a lot of people read your book it was a best-seller, a hundred times more people are going to watch this show,” Macy said.
Macy is a former Roanoke Times reporter, the author of the namesake book and serves as an executive producer. The Alleghany Highlands welcomed film crews earlier this year and now it’s almost showtime.
“And our showrunner has done a lot of shows and when he first kind of laid out how he was going to tell this really complicated story I thought oh my gosh that’s never going to work, but it really is coming together,” Macy said.
The cast is led by Michael Keaton and the trailer has a number of nods to our region. There’s business at the State Capitol in Richmond, the Clifton Forge skyline sets the scene, and doctors are named in communities like Thaxton, Timberlake, Vinton and Wirtz on a pharmaceutical rep’s list shown in the film.
“I lobbied really hard for the show to be shot in Virginia, so most of it’s shot in Richmond, and Clifton Forge, there’s a bit in Bowling Green, Virginia,” Macy said.
The book has been a huge talker in our region but the series takes it to the next level. Macy said the book and the show parallel in themes and the key takeaway is black and white.
“We also think the show makes a strong statement about who should be accountable for this opioid crisis. Not the people who were addicted, the people who addicted them,” Macy said.
Macy stars in one of the episodes in a small role. She also still has hope her other bestsellers, Truevine and Factory Man, can be up on the screen as well.