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The acclaimed creator is set for a return to television. The iconic mob drama visionary is scripting MKUltra, a mini-series focusing on the Central Intelligence Agency's covert cold war-era psychological manipulation project for the premium network.

About the Project

The project, initially revealed by entertainment insiders, marks David Chase's first series since the groundbreaking HBO crime series. The dramatic thriller, based on John Lisle's book Project Mind Control, zeroes in on the notorious scientist, referred to as the “black sorcerer” who led Project MKUltra, the agency's covert hallucinogen experiments that administered psychedelic substances, hypnosis, and torture on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from the early 1950s until it was halted in the early 1970s.

Research Activities

Gottlieb oversaw such experiments in the name of state safety, to counter the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese “brainwashing” techniques. He's also known as the inadvertent father of the LSD counterculture, as he introduced the drug to the CIA in the mid-20th century, in an effort to explore the possibilities of controlling the human mind. Some test subjects were volunteers from the agency, armed forces personnel and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the studies. Additional subjects, on the other hand, were mental patients, incarcerated persons, drug addicts, and prostitutes coerced or misled into substance administration that in some cases left long-term harm.

Chase's Legacy

David Chase won multiple Emmy Awards for the Sopranos, a complex drama about a New Jersey-based crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with starting the peak era of high-quality TV. After the series, featuring the deceased James Gandolfini, concluded in 2007, Chase has primarily concentrated on feature films. He authored, helmed, and produced the 2012 film "Not Fade Away". Additionally, he collaborated on The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel to The Sopranos featuring Michael Gandolfini, that debuted in 2021.

Return to Television

This comeback to television follows he declared the period of ambitious television series in part shaped by the Sopranos to be a "temporary phase" that is now finished. Speaking to a leading newspaper for the series' quarter-century milestone, the 78-year-old claimed that he had been instructed to “dumb down” his screenplays in discussions with executives and advised against producing TV content that was overly intricate.

Chase attributed that perspective in partly to his encounter trying to make a series with the writer Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who finds herself in federal protection. In multiple discussions with producers, he said, they were informed "the harsh reality" that it was not straightforward enough. "What audience is this targeting?" he said. “I guess the stockholders?”

"It appears we are disoriented, and viewers struggle to concentrate, hence we cannot create content that is overly logical, engaging, and demands focus from the audience," he added. "Regarding streaming leaders? The situation is deteriorating. We are reverting to previous conditions."