Overview
- On Tuesday at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Chase said he is 'in the story stage' on HBO’s Project: MKUltra while naming a separate 1950s‑set film his chief priority.
- Chase will write and direct the untitled feature, which he says is inspired by a true story from a friend and follows a family tied to both the CIA’s LSD work and the polio vaccine rollout.
- He described a small creative detail for the film as involving a young college DJ and substantial musical elements, but no casting, production start date, or release plan has been announced.
- The HBO limited series is an adaptation of John Lisle’s Project Mind Control and will center on Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA program that ran human LSD experiments during the Cold War.
- Chase has warned that the material is large and sensitive, noting the CIA once bought vast quantities of LSD to try to weaponize it, and he said recent political pressures make narrowing the story and preserving creative freedom harder.