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David Chase is making a return to television. The iconic mob drama visionary is scripting Project MKUltra, a limited series centered around the CIA's secret cold war-era mind control program for the premium network.

About the Project

This new venture, first reported by entertainment insiders, marks David Chase's first series since the era-defining HBO crime series. The dramatic thriller, inspired by the author's non-fiction work Project Mind Control, focuses on Sidney Gottlieb, known as the "dark magician" who led the MKUltra initiative, the agency's covert hallucinogen experiments that administered hallucinogenic drugs, hypnotic techniques, and torture on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from the early 1950s 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 is also regarded as the inadvertent father of the psychedelic movement, as he brought the substance to the CIA in the 1950s, in an effort to explore the potential of manipulating human consciousness. Certain participants were willing individuals from the CIA, military officers and college students who had knowledge of the purpose of the experiments. Others, on the other hand, were psychiatric inmates, prisoners, substance abusers, and prostitutes forced or deceived into substance administration that in certain instances left permanent damage.

Creator's Background

David Chase earned five Emmys for the Sopranos, a complex drama about a New Jersey crime syndicate widely credited with starting the golden age of high-quality TV. After the series, starring the deceased James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, Chase has primarily concentrated on movie projects. He authored, helmed, and produced the 2012 movie Not Fade Away. He also co-wrote and produced The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel to The Sopranos featuring Gandolfini’s son, that debuted in 2021.

TV Comeback

This comeback to television comes after he stated the period of ambitious TV dramas in some ways defined by the Sopranos to be a "temporary phase" that is now over. In an interview with a leading newspaper for the show’s 25th anniversary, the septuagenarian asserted that he had been instructed to “dumb down” his scripts in meetings with executives and warned against making TV content that was too complex.

He attributed that perspective in part to his experience attempting to develop a show with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who ends up in witness protection. In numerous meetings with executives, he noted, they were told "the harsh reality" that it was too complex. “Who is this all really for?” he said. “I guess the stockholders?”

“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.”