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David Chase is set for a comeback to television. The iconic mob drama creator will write Project MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the Central Intelligence Agency's secret cold war-era mind control program for HBO.

Exploring the Project

This new venture, initially revealed by industry sources, will be David Chase's initial TV project following the groundbreaking HBO mob drama. This intense narrative, based on John Lisle's non-fiction work "Project Mind Control", focuses on the notorious scientist, known as the “black sorcerer” who oversaw the MKUltra initiative, the agency's covert hallucinogen experiments that tested hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, and physical coercion on willing and unwilling subjects from the early 1950s until it was terminated in the early 1970s.

The Experiments

Gottlieb directed such experiments in the interest of national security, to combat the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese “brainwashing” techniques. He is also regarded as the inadvertent father of the LSD counterculture, as he introduced the drug to the agency in the mid-20th century, in an effort to explore the possibilities of manipulating human consciousness. Certain participants were volunteers from the agency, military officers and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the experiments. Others, on the other hand, were psychiatric inmates, incarcerated persons, drug addicts, and sex workers forced or deceived into substance administration that in some cases resulted in permanent damage.

Chase's Legacy

David Chase won five Emmys for his hit series, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey-based crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with ushering in the peak era of high-quality TV. Since the show, starring the deceased James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, the creator has primarily concentrated on movie projects. He wrote, directed and produced the 2012 film "Not Fade Away". He also co-wrote and produced The Many Saints of Newark, a Sopranos prequel featuring Gandolfini’s son, that debuted in 2021.

Return to Television

This comeback to television follows he declared the era of ambitious television series in some ways shaped by his show to be a “blip” that is now finished. In an interview with a major publication for the series' quarter-century milestone, the septuagenarian asserted that he had been told to "simplify" his screenplays in discussions with executives and warned against making television that was too complex.

He attributed that view in partly to his experience attempting to develop a series with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a high-end sex worker who ends up in witness protection. In multiple discussions with executives, he noted, they were told "the harsh reality" that it was too complex. "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. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”