Over the weekend, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn took part in an impromptu Q&A on Facebook in which he answered fan questions about that movie and his relationship with Marvel.

When asked, “Will you be at San Diego Comic Con this year?”, he responded: “I’m not sure. Marvel isn’t going so I’m not sure I will either.” This will be a first for Marvel Studios, and Gunn later replied to another fan on Twitter who suggested he might be lying by stating: “I have never lied about anything to the fans, ever.”

Honestly, this isn’t all that surprising. Marvel don’t need Comic-Con at this point, and their own “Marvel Event” last year showed that they can generate an even bigger amount of buzz for their upcoming projects while simultaneously saving the time, money, and resources it takes to put on a show in San Diego.

A lot of studios have begun sitting out the event in recent years. After all, the Avengers: Age of Ultron footage shown off in 2014 may have got fans talking for a day or two when descriptions of it wound up online, but it’s hard to imagine that swaying anyone to actually go and buy a ticket for the sequel!

Now, it just remains to be seen whether other late 2015/early 2016 releases like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will end up trying to fill the void left by Marvel…