The ongoing Coronavirus crisis has pretty much everyone in a state of panic, with entire countries on lockdown in order to stop the spread of the disease and no one really sure when things will return to normal. Thankfully, most people are taking it pretty seriously, but there’s a small percentage of the population who still seem intent on going about their daily lives like nothing has changed.
Ant-Man star Evangeline Lilly is one of those people, apparently, after the actress drew huge backlash from Marvel fans for voicing some very controversial thoughts about the pandemic, including the fact that she thinks the entire thing might just be a hoax. Of course, Marvel Studios aren’t used to negative publicity surrounding their franchise, nor do they want it, and though Lilly has since apologized, it may be too little too late.
As we reported earlier this week, they’ll be significantly reducing her role in Ant-Man 3, changing her status as a co-lead to more of a supporting player. And now we’ve been told by our sources – the same ones who said that the Guardians will have a cameo in Thor: Love and Thunder and John Cena is playing Vin Diesel’s brother in Fast & Furious 9, both of which have since been confirmed – that the studio wants to teach Lilly a lesson for her comments.
Much like they did with James Gunn by firing him for a long while from Guardians Vol. 3 before rehiring him, we’re told that the reason they’re still reducing the actress’ role in Ant-Man 3 despite the fact that she apologized is because they want to send a message – just like they did with Gunn. That being that their stars need to watch what they say and that they don’t want this sort of negative publicity surrounding the MCU.
All that being said, our sources have told us that the fact that she did apologize is certainly a good move and while they were considering dropping Lilly completely after her role in Ant-Man 3, that likely won’t happen anymore. Instead, she’ll just have a reduced part in the film and might still go on to show up in future projects – like Captain Marvel 2 and New Avengers.
Still, it’s clear that Evangeline Lilly has done some substantial damage to her career with Marvel thanks to her comments about the Coronavirus and it’ll be interesting to see how things play out for her from here.
