Evangeline Lilly, who plays Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, took to Instagram to criticize Disney for laying off Marvel employees during a recent layoff that saw 1,000 employees laid off across Marvel. Lilly was particularly furious at the firing of Andy Park, Marvel’s director of visual development, who had been part of the Marvel Studios family for 16 years.
“I reached out to my good friend Andy Park, the genius who created the original Wasp supersuit and concept drawings, and said, ‘Is this real? What’s really going on?'” Lilly said in a video post reacting to reports of Marvel job cuts as Disney pivots toward AI. “He said, ‘Yes, it’s true.'” It’s hard to believe…that Disney is letting go of the artists whose genius brought the Marvel Universe to life, and that the people who invented and designed these characters are being replaced by AI. The AI takes their design, takes what they created, and uses it to create an iteration of it. I’m so sorry, Andy. I am truly sorry to all the artists who were fired. ”
Lily was more candid in her Instagram caption, writing, “Disney, shame on you for turning your back on those who built power and now you’re using them to throw them away.”
“Where is the law to remove all human artwork from AI banks?!?” she asked. “Why are they able to steal our talent and use it to make executives rich, but the artists responsible for feeding the robots are starving?? It’s disgusting. Where are the California legislators…?!?!?”
Lily also paid tribute to the Marvel artists who “designed and brought to life Marvel’s glory days. I was there. I know what you did. I know how passionately you worked around the clock to make the magic happen. No matter what our new Wizard of Oz does in the future, you are the magicians. I will never forget.”
Park announced his termination at Marvel on April 20, writing on social media: “I was there to start an unconventional team. Over 16 years, I’ve starred in over 40 films and led 15 films as visual development director. I couldn’t be more proud of the history we’ve created.”
Sources told Variety at the time that Marvel plans to maintain a small visual development team, hire on a project-by-project basis, and continue to focus on collaborating with visual development artists on its own projects.
Lily made her debut as Hope Van Dyne in 2015’s Ant-Man and reprized the role in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. She appeared in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and reappeared in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumia. Watch a video of Lily criticizing Disney in her Instagram post below.
