Evangeline Lilly, who plays Hope van Dyne/Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, took to Instagram to blast Disney for firing Marvel employees amid the recent layoffs that saw 1,000 staffers let go from the company at large. Lilly was particularly outraged over the axing of Marvel’s director of visual development Andy Park, who was a member of the Marvel Studios family for 16 years.
“I reached out to my good friend Andy Park, who was the genius behind creating the original Wasp super-suit and concept drawings, and I said, ‘Is this true? Is this really what’s happening?’” Lilly said in a video post reacting to reports of Marvel layoffs amid a larger Disney pivot to AI. “He said, ‘Yeah, it’s true.’ I can’t quite believe that… that Disney has let go of the artists who brought the Marvel Universe to life through their genius and that the people who invented these characters and who designed them are being replaced by AI. AI that will take their designs and take what they created and use it to create iterations of that. I am so sorry, Andy. I am so sorry to every one of the artists who were let go.”
Lilly was far more blunt in her Instagram caption, where she wrote: “Disney, SHAME ON YOU for turning your back on the people who built the power you are now using to throw them away.”
“Where are the laws that REMOVE all human art from the AI bank?!?” she asked. “Why do they get to steal our brilliance and use it to make executives rich while the artists responsible for feeding their robots go hungry?? Disgusting. California lawmakers…where are you?!?!?”
Lilly also saluted the Marvel artists “who designed and brought to life the glory days of Marvel… I was there. I know what you did. I know how passionately you worked round the clock to make magic happen. You are the magicians, no matter what the Wizards of our new Oz make it look like going forward. I will never forget.”
Park announced April 20 that he was being laid off at Marvel and wrote on social media: “I was there at the start of a team that broke the mold. 16 years, 40+ films, and 15 films led as Director of Visual Development, I couldn’t be prouder of the history we made.”
Sources told Variety at the time that Marvel plans to keep a small visual development team, hiring people on a project by project basis, and remains committed to working with visual development artists on its projects.
Lilly debuted as Hope van Dyne in 2015’s “Ant-Man” before reprising the character in 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” She appeared in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” and returned in 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Watch Lilly’s video calling out Disney in Instagram post below.
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