Drama Series “Chimera” Halts Filming After Staff Is Accused Of Sexually Harassing A Scriptwriter
The upcoming drama series Chimera has temporarily halted all production after a scriptwriter was sexually harassed by a staff member and later traumatized by a producer.
The sexual assaulter, identified as “A”, as well as the producer, identified as “C”, were both removed from the program.
It’s true that we halted filming because of the sexual harassment case that happened on June 15. The sexual assaulter ‘A’ and producer ‘C’ who caused further harm to the victim was terminated. The directing and production team uploaded an apology to the staff and cast through our group chat, and we’re currently looking to fix the issues.
— JS Pictures’ Production Team
According to news reports, the Chimera team went out for dinner on June 15. There, an assistant staff member sexually harassed a scriptwriter, identified as “B”. After discovering the news, the production team revealed that they held a staff meeting to make the assistant staff member apologize to the scriptwriter.
The scriptwriter wanted the staff member to confess in a public setting and officially apologize to her before resigning from the program. However, the production team set up a small meeting in the woods away from the set with just the casting director, film director, light director, and a couple of other staff members. At that meeting, one of the producers “C” further traumatized the scriptwriter by putting the blame onto her. He claimed, “It’s your fault for not avoiding it.”
The JS Pictures’ Production Team claims that the victim’s claims are true except for the fact that she had agreed with the location beforehand. They emphasized their acknowledgment of their mistakes and claimed they are reflecting on their actions.
After learning about how producer C harmed the victim for the second time, we removed him from the program with compulsion.
But the location where the apology took place was agreed upon by the scriptwriter. Her claims that ‘We went into the woods away from the set’ is untrue.
We released an official apology regarding this matter. We are currently reflecting and taking responsibility for harming the victim even further.
— JS Pictures’ Production Team
As the backlash towards the production team continued to arise, JS Pictures once again released a lengthy apology to the staff, cast, and the victim for their mishandling of the situation.
They clarified that both “A” and “C” were removed from the team, and they will be taking extra measure to regain the public’s trust.
This is JS Pictures’ ‘Chimera’ production team.
First, we would like to apologize to the victim who is suffering the most during this difficult time.
We are also apologetic to the whole staff and cast because we were unable to respond quickly to the matter. We believe that instead of figuring out our next course of action, it is more important to personally apologize to the victim first.
After talking with the scriptwriter, we found out that she was further traumatized when she talked to one of our producers. He responded with hurtful words, such as ‘I don’t care. Tell me what you want right now.’ and ‘Why didn’t you try to avoid it.’ There is no excuse for the producer who failed to grasp the nature of the situation, as well as we who did not take the appropriate measures as a mediator.
We understand that through our actions, we have harmed the victim once again and we personally take responsibility for our wrong actions as a production team.
We are sincerely ashamed that the news of this event was released late and not by us but the victim.
We will take responsibility for the producer’s wrongful statements and take appropriate action against him.
After receiving the new information and realizing the severity of the situation, we have removed the producer from our program. We will soon hold a committee to identify the problem and review the possible measures including firing the producer.
We believe that we have missed the opportunity to repair the trust that we’ve broken. We are sorry that we cannot say more than to vow that our production team will work harder.
In order to prevent this from happening again, we will do our best to be more sensitive and to take appropriate action after gathering more accurate facts.
We would like to apologize once again to the victim who was hurt from this event, as well as the staff and cast who were confused by the situation.
— JS Pictures’ Production Team
The drama tells the story of a present-day case that is found to be related to an explosion and series of murders from 1984, known as the “Chimera Incident”. The drama follows the main characters as they track down the criminal and uncover the secrets between the two cases.
Actors Park Hae Soo, Lee Hee Jun, and Claudia Kim are the main cast for the series.
