🔗 Share this article Sopranos Creator David Chase to Write HBO Mini-Series on CIA Mind Control Initiative The acclaimed creator is set for a comeback to television. The Sopranos visionary will write MKUltra, a limited series centered around the CIA's secret cold war-era mind control program for the premium network. Exploring the Project This new venture, initially revealed by industry sources, will be David Chase's first series following the era-defining HBO crime series. The dramatic thriller, inspired by the author's book "Project Mind Control", focuses on the notorious scientist, referred to as the "dark magician" who led the MKUltra initiative, the CIA's covert psychedelic program that tested hallucinogenic drugs, hypnotic techniques, and torture on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from 1953 until it was halted in the early 1970s. The Experiments The scientist directed these tests in the interest of national security, to combat the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He's also known as the inadvertent father of the psychedelic movement, as he brought the substance to the agency in the 1950s, in an attempt to explore the possibilities of controlling human consciousness. Some test subjects were willing individuals from the CIA, military officers and college students who had knowledge of the purpose of the experiments. Additional subjects, on the other hand, were psychiatric inmates, incarcerated persons, substance abusers, and sex workers forced or misled into substance administration that in certain instances resulted in permanent damage. Creator's Background Chase earned five Emmys for his hit series, a complex drama about a New Jersey crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with ushering in the peak era of “prestige” television. After the series, starring the late James Gandolfini, concluded in 2007, Chase has primarily concentrated on feature films. He authored, helmed, and produced the 2012 movie Not Fade Away. Additionally, he collaborated on "The Many Saints of Newark", a Sopranos prequel starring Michael Gandolfini, that premiered in 2021. Return to Television This comeback to television follows he stated the era of sophisticated TV dramas in some ways defined by the Sopranos to be a “blip” that is now over. In an interview with a major publication for the series' quarter-century milestone, the 78-year-old asserted that he had been told to "simplify" his screenplays in meetings with studio heads and advised against producing TV content that was too complex. He attributed that view in part to his experience trying to make a series with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a high-end sex worker who ends up in witness protection. In numerous meetings with executives, he said, they were told “the unfortunate truth” that it was too complex. "What audience is this targeting?" 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.”