David Chase has set up his next series project at HBO — one that’s a world away from The Sopranos.
Chase has optioned John Lisle’s nonfiction book Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA to adapt as a limited series. The drama, titled Project: MKUltra, is in development at the premium outlet. Should it go to series, it will be Chase’s first HBO effort since The Many Saints of Newark, a Sopranos prequel film that debuted on HBO Max at the same time as its theatrical release in 2021.
HBO describes Project: MKUltra as “a dramatic thriller centered on the infamous chemist and spymaster Sidney Gottlieb, often known as The Black Sorcerer, who headed the CIA’s MKUltra Psychedelic program which conducted dangerous and deadly mind control experiments on willing — and unwilling — subjects during the height of the Cold War. Gottlieb is also known as the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture.”
Chase will executive produce the project through his Riverain Pictures along with Nicole Lambert, head of production and development for the company.
The Sopranos ran from 1999-2007 on HBO, winning 21 Emmy Awards and acclaim as one of the greatest series of the 21st century so far. Since then, Chase wrote and directed the 2012 feature Not Fade Away and co-wrote (with Lawrence Konner) and produced The Many Saints of Newark (directed by frequent Sopranos helmer Alan Taylor).
He also sold a project about the witness protection program to FX, based on a previously unproduced script of his, but exited due to schedule conflicts with a feature film he’s developing. Hannah Fidell (A Teacher) and Gina Welch are co-showrunners on the FX project, which stars Alison Brie, Ashley Thomas and Finn Wittrock; Lambert is an EP.
Deadline first reported the news.
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