Sacha Baron Cohen Wraps New Ali G Movie 24 Years After 2002 Debut

Q: What is David Chase exploring by contrasting the CIA’s sinister LSD weaponization with the public hope of the polio vaccine?

David Chase is exploring the split personality of postwar America: the same era that produced a life-saving public good in the polio vaccine also produced secret state abuse through the CIA’s LSD experiments. The contrast points to a broader theme of how science and medicine can be used in radically different ways. In Chase’s framing, the polio vaccine represents collective hope, trust, and genuine progress, while MKUltra-era LSD weaponization represents secrecy, coercion, and the corruption of knowledge for control. That tension lets him examine how a society celebrating medical triumph could simultaneously hide profound moral rot. The material is also personal for Chase. He has said his own teenage LSD experience was life-changing and opened him to “other levels of existence.” That gives the project another layer: not just the abuse of LSD by the CIA, but the irony that a substance capable of spiritual or psychological revelation was turned into an instrument of manipulation and harm. Taken together, Chase appears to be probing loss of innocence, the misuse of power, and the ethical divide between public-serving science and clandestine experimentation. The juxtaposition is less about LSD or vaccines alone than about what they reveal about American institutions, trust, and the competing uses of modern knowledge.

3 articles · Updated · Empire · Jul 8

Deadline reported Sacha Baron Cohen has finished shooting a surprise Ali G follow-up, reviving the character more than two decades after 2002's "Ali G Indahouse."
Secret filming appears to have masked the project even as rumors swirled in recent weeks and Cohen publicly downplayed talk of an Ali G return during press for Netflix comedy "Ladies First."
Production details remain scarce: Cohen's representatives declined to comment, and the film still has no confirmed title, release date or cast list.
The revival follows Cohen's stealthy 2020 release of "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," suggesting another low-profile rollout for one of his best-known characters.