GODS AND SECRETS director Adi Shankar will be replacing Mark Salling in the HBO mini-series, he said in a statement sent to LRM on Tuesday. This comes in the wake of the GLEE star being indicted on charges of child pornography.

“[Salling] has been cut from the mini-series, I will personally be paying for the reshoots, and I hope that Mark finds inner peace.”

According to CNN, last December, investigator seized a laptop, hard drive, and flash drive from the actor’s residence, and on those items were thousands of images and videos “depicting child pornography.”

GODS AND SECRETS is an upcoming mini-series from first-time director Adi Shankar (perhaps best known for producing the DREDD remake). 

“ADI SHANKAR’S GODS AND SECRETS explores the darker ramifications of a world with superheroes, both on the people they protect and the heroes themselves. Tragedy has struck the Guardians of Justice, and in its aftermath secrets are revealed, lives are changed, and the war to end all wars begins. Death, secrets, and lies threaten to tear the Guardians of Justice apart, and the world with them.”

There is no word yet on how this development will set back the production or release schedule.

Shankar’s full statement on the matter reads as follows:

“The innocence of our planet’s children is something that must be protected at all costs.  As entertainers, our role is to be the “conscience of humanity,” striving to make the world better for future generations.  Sadly, we live in a country where statistically at least 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, 80,000 children are reportedly sexually abused every year, and at least 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 18.  According to available data, every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted. Even more troubling, exponentially more cases go unreported as in most situations, authority figures are ill equipped to help.   

The aforementioned statistics are nauseating, reminiscent of a third world country, and until very recently, kept out of the limelight.  Child abuse is a cultural cancer whose tentacles penetrate far deeper than a single celebrity caught with illicit images on his computer, just as date rape is a is a far more prominent issue than the repeated transgressions of one mediocre entertainer from the 1970’s.  Child abuse is a democratic disease existing across socioeconomic lines affecting every walk of life.  It affects all of us, and more importantly, its existence needs to cece to exist.  Period.

Adi Shankar’s Gods and Secrets will be moving forward without Mark Salling.  He has been cut from the mini-series, I will personally be paying for the reshoots, and I hope that Mark finds inner peace.  Furthermore, a percentage of profits from the project will go to a charity for abused children.  Hopefully some good will come of all of this and I pray that when the dust has settled, the hyper-connectivity of the information age that has brought to light the transgressions of several public figures, will also force us to look within our society to identify and eliminate the root cause of the rape culture we exist in.”

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SOURCE: Adi Shankar, CNN, TheWrap