This article, authored by Leena Nasir is republished under the Creative Commons “CC BY-NC-ND” license with permission from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The Sopranos” creator David Chase is set to explore one of the CIA’s most notorious covert operation in “Project: MKUltra” with a limited series on HBO.
The series marks Chase’s first television project since his acclaimed mob drama, which redefined prestige TV. “Project: MKUltra” is based on John Lisle’s nonfiction book, “Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKUltra.” Chase has optioned the book and will pen the adaptation under his first-look deal with HBO through his company, Riverain Pictures, according to Deadline.
‘The Sopranos’ creator David Chase is developing a new limited series ‘PROJECT: MKULTRA’ for HBO
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 22, 2025
The series will follow the CIA’s MKUltra Psychedelic program which conducted deadly mind control experiments on subjects during the Cold War.
(Source: Deadline) pic.twitter.com/JcjGDjrIcY
“Project: MKUltra” is a dramatic thriller that follows the infamous chemist and spymaster Sidney Gottlieb — known as The Black Sorcerer — who led the CIA’s MKUltra psychedelic program during the Cold War. Under his direction, the agency carried out perilous and often lethal mind-control experiments on both willing and unsuspecting subjects. Gottlieb is also regarded as the unwitting architect of the LSD-fueled counterculture that would emerge in the decades that followed.
Deadline reported that Chase and Nicole Lambert will executive produce.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 13: Steve Schirripa, Dominic Chianese, and David Chase attend the The Sopranos 25th Anniversary Reunion: WISE GUY David Chase and The Sopranos during the 2024 Tribeca Festival at Beacon Theatre on June 13, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)
The real-life MKUltra program, operated by the CIA throughout the 1950s and ’60s, was designed to counter what the agency believed were Soviet and Chinese breakthroughs in “brainwashing.” To do so, it employed psychedelic drugs, hypnosis, and psychological and physical torture — frequently without the subjects’ consent — in a secretive effort to manipulate human behavior and extract information.
Chase is a seven-time Emmy Award winner, five of which were for “The Sopranos.” The two other productions he won Emmys for were “Off The Minnesota Strip,” a movie made for television in 1980, and “The Rockford Files,” a detective drama series that aired on NBC from 1974 to 1980.
Casting information and details surrounding production and release date of his new project remain under wraps.
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