Evangeline Lilly has publicly called out the Walt Disney Company over its latest round of layoffs at Marvel, accusing the studio of pushing aside the artists who built its empire and replacing them with artificial intelligence.
The actress, who played Hope van Dyne, Wasp, across four Marvel films, took to Instagram to express his anger after learning that Marvel’s visual development department had been among the hardest hit by company-wide budget cuts that reduced Disney’s workforce by about eight percent.
“SHAME ON YOU for turning your back on the people who built the power you now use to throw away,” she wrote in her caption.
In the accompanying video, Lilly explained that she reached out directly to Andy Park, the artist who designed the Wasp costume she wore in the 2015 original. Ant Man film, to confirm what she had seen reported. He confirmed that he had been released.
“I can’t believe Disney abandoned the artists who brought the current Marvel Universe to life with their imagination and genius,” she said.
“The people who invented these characters, who designed them in the first place, are now being replaced by AI. AI that will take their creations and take what those artists created and use it to create iterations of them.”
She was blunt about her stance on the issue.
“I’m so sorry Andy, and I’m so sorry for every single artist that was fired from the 1000 artists that Disney laid off, and especially for the entire Marvel team that is now considered obsolete after building the Marvel empire.”
She added that the works produced by these artists “are human creations, and they should not be stolen by tech giants so their robots can reproduce them. I think it’s disgusting and horrible, and I stand with all the artists and Andy.”
The cuts at Marvel have affected most of its departments, including film and television production, comics, franchises, finance, legal and visual development, with the latter particularly hard hit, following a wave of smaller layoffs in 2024.
