Get ready, Sopranos fans! Legendary creator David Chase is making his grand return to television with a gripping new limited series for HBO, diving deep into the infamous Project Mkultra.
TL;DR: The Quick Scoop on David Chase's New Series
- David Chase, the visionary creator behind The Sopranos, is developing a new limited series for HBO.
- The show, tentatively titled Project: MKUltra, will explore the CIA's real-life mind-control experiments, focusing on notorious chemist Sidney Gottlieb.
- This marks Chase's first major TV project since The Sopranos wrapped in 2007, promising a dramatic thriller based on a revealing non-fiction book.
It's been a long wait for fans of groundbreaking television. Ever since Tony Soprano's screen went black in that iconic finale of The Sopranos back in 2007, David Chase has mostly focused on feature films. He wrote and directed 2012's Not Fade Away and co-wrote and produced the 2021 prequel movie, The Many Saints of Newark. But now, almost twenty years later, the creative genius is officially heading back to the small screen, and we couldn't be more excited!
His new project is a limited series for his long-time home, HBO, and it's set to plunge us into a dark, fascinating chapter of American history.
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Unveiling the Chilling True Story Behind Project: MKUltra
Chase's upcoming series is titled Project: MKUltra and will be a dramatic thriller centered around the CIA's notorious Cold War-era mind control program. For those unfamiliar, MKUltra was a covert, and often illegal, government operation that ran from 1953 to 1973. It involved highly controversial experiments using psychedelic drugs (like LSD), hypnosis, and various forms of torture, all in an attempt to explore mind control techniques and counter perceived "brainwashing" threats from the Soviet Union and China.
The show is based on the non-fiction book Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKUltra by author John Lisle. Chase himself will pen the series adaptation, ensuring his distinctive narrative style is front and center.
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Meet Sidney Gottlieb: The CIA's "Black Sorcerer" and Father of LSD Counterculture
Central to Chase's new series is the figure of Sidney Gottlieb. Known as "The Black Sorcerer," Gottlieb was the infamous chemist and spymaster who headed the MKUltra Psychedelic program. He was the one who signed off on its shocking experiments, some of which were conducted on individuals without their knowledge or consent.
Gottlieb's work, conducted in the name of national security, inadvertently made him the "unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture." His tests involved a range of subjects, from military officers and college students who volunteered (with some knowledge of the experiments) to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and sex workers who were often coerced or misled into drug dosages that sometimes caused permanent damage.
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Why This Return to Television is a Landmark Event for Prestige Drama
David Chase's return to TV is a significant moment for prestige television, a landscape he largely helped define with The Sopranos. That show, starring the late James Gandolfini, won five Emmys and is widely considered one of the greatest TV series of all time, fundamentally changing how complex, character-driven dramas were made.
Since The Sopranos wrapped, Chase has been outspoken about the challenges in television. He famously declared the era of ambitious TV dramas a "blip" that is now over, sharing his frustrations about being told to "dumb down" scripts in meetings with studio heads.
"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,” Chase once said. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”
— David Chase
Given these previous sentiments, his decision to jump back into a new series for HBO is a testament to the compelling nature of the MKUltra story and perhaps a sign that HBO is giving him the creative freedom he desires. He'll be writing the series and executive producing alongside Nicole Lambert, who also serves as Head of Production and Development for his company, Riverain Pictures.
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The Unexpected Connection to Netflix's Hit Show, Stranger Things
If the concept of mind-control experiments and psychedelic drugs being tested on unwitting subjects sounds familiar, especially to sci-fi fans, there's a good reason! Elements of the real Project MKUltra served as a key inspiration for Netflix's massively popular series, Stranger Things.
In Stranger Things, characters like Eleven are linked to the fictionalized version of these experiments, with the implication that her telekinetic abilities are a result of such testing. Of course, the real MKUltra didn't open portals to alternate dimensions like the Upside Down. But it's a "funny" coincidence, as one report put it, that the same dark historical chapter is now being tackled by a master storyteller like David Chase for a more grounded, dramatic thriller.
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What to Expect From This Highly Anticipated and Intriguing New Series
With David Chase at the helm, we can anticipate a meticulously crafted, deeply character-driven narrative that goes beyond simple conspiracy thrills. His focus on Sidney Gottlieb suggests an exploration of not just the experiments themselves, but the motivations, the moral ambiguities, and the broader ripples these actions had on America. This won't just be a procedural; it's poised to be a complex, psychological dive into power, ethics, and the human psyche.
While casting and release dates are still under wraps, the mere announcement of Chase's return to television with a topic as potent as MKUltra is enough to get any serious TV watcher excited. Get ready to have your mind bent in the best possible way!
Frequently Asked Questions About David Chase's Project: MKUltra
- Multiple industry reports via Deadline, Variety, ComicBook.com, Esquire, A.V. Club, NME, Beebom.