Ant-Man and the Wasp actor Evangeline Lilly has spoken out about Disney and Marvel's recent mass layoffs.
"Disney, SHAME ON YOU for turning your back on the people who built the power you are now using to throw them away," Lilly wrote on Instagram (via Variety). "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?!?!?"
According to the initial report from Forbes, Marvel laid off over 1,000 employees in the month of April, across various departments including film and TV production, comics, franchise, finance, and legal. This included close to the entire visual development team at Marvel Studios, which included artists, illustrators, character designers, and environment designers who worked across TV shows, movies, and video games for the comic book giant.
The layoffs were reportedly all part of "cost-reduction" and Marvel cutting back on content... and not because they're planning on replacing their artists with AI. However, Marvel has been accused of using AI before.
Lilly used the rest of her post to offer support directly to the artists who were let go, including Andy Park, who served as Marvel's Director of Visual Development for 16 years, and worked on over 40 films. "[To the arts] 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."
