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The acclaimed creator is set for a return to the small screen. The iconic mob drama visionary will write Project MKUltra, a limited series centered around the Central Intelligence Agency's secret cold war-era mind control program for HBO.

About the Series

The project, first reported by entertainment insiders, will be David Chase's first series since the groundbreaking HBO mob drama. This intense narrative, based on the author's non-fiction work Project Mind Control, zeroes in on Sidney Gottlieb, referred to as the “black sorcerer” who oversaw the MKUltra initiative, the CIA's clandestine hallucinogen experiments that tested psychedelic substances, hypnosis, and physical coercion on willing and unwilling subjects from 1953 until it was halted in 1973.

The Experiments

Gottlieb oversaw these tests in the name of national security, to combat the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese “brainwashing” techniques. He's also known as the accidental pioneer of the LSD counterculture, as he introduced the substance to the agency in the mid-20th century, in an attempt to explore the potential of controlling human consciousness. Certain participants were willing individuals from the CIA, armed forces personnel and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the studies. Additional subjects, however, were mental patients, prisoners, substance abusers, and sex workers forced or deceived into drug dosages that in some cases resulted in permanent damage.

Chase's Legacy

David Chase won multiple Emmy Awards for his hit series, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey-based crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with starting the peak era of high-quality TV. Since the show, featuring the late James Gandolfini, concluded in 2007, the creator has mostly focused on feature films. He wrote, directed and produced the 2012 film Not Fade Away. Additionally, he collaborated on The Many Saints of Newark, a Sopranos prequel featuring Gandolfini’s son, that debuted in 2021.

TV Comeback

His return to television comes after he declared the period of sophisticated TV dramas in some ways defined by the Sopranos to be a "temporary phase" that is now finished. Speaking to a major publication for the show’s 25th anniversary, the 78-year-old claimed that he had been told to “dumb down” his screenplays in meetings with studio heads and advised against making TV content that was too complex.

He attributed that view in part to his experience attempting to develop a show with the writer Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who finds herself in witness protection. In multiple discussions with executives, he said, they were informed “the unfortunate truth” that it was too complex. “Who is this all really for?” he said. "Presumably, the investors?"

“We seem to be confused and audiences can’t keep their minds on things, so we can’t make anything that makes too much sense, takes our attention and requires an audience to focus,” he added. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”