It looks like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is sticking with Chris Pratt for the long haul—at least if director James Gunn has any say. After calls to remove Pratt from the MCU reemerged over the weekend, the Guardians of the Galaxy director took to Twitter to defend the actor, assuring the public that Pratt “would never be replaced” as Star-Lord.

On Saturday, April 23, Pratt was the subject of a viral tweet which included side-by-side photos of Pratt and the Conjuring and Aquaman actor Patrick Wilson. The tweet called for Pratt’s removal from the MCU and suggested replacing him with Wilson, who does bear an uncanny resemblance to Pratt. Gunn, however, was having none of it. 

“For what?” replied Gunn to the viral tweet. “Because of your made-up, utterly-false beliefs about him? For something that someone else told you about him that’s not true? Chris Pratt would never be replaced as Star-Lord but, if he ever was, we would all be going with him.”

Pratt has come under fire for his involvement in Hillsong Church, which celebrities like Elliot Page have condemned for being “infamously anti-LGBTQ.” “If you are a famous actor and you belong to an organization that hates a certain group of people, don’t be surprised if someone simply wonders why it’s not addressed,” Page tweeted in 2019, after calling Pratt out directly for his involvement in Hillsong. “Being anti LGBTQ is wrong, there aren’t two sides. The damage it causes is severe. Full stop.” At the time, Pratt said “nothing could be further from the truth” regarding the anti-LGBTQ+ claims lodged against Hillsong, adding “I go to a church that opens their doors to absolutely everyone…. I am a man who believes that everyone is entitled to love who they want free from the judgment of their fellow man.”

But Gunn also suggested that Pratt is no longer involved in Hillsong. “I know the church he currently goes to. Do you?” Gunn wrote to another user in the same Twitter thread. “The answer is you don’t, but you heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone where he goes to church, so decided, ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll believe this terrible thing I heard online about this celebrity!’”

Gunn is not the only member of the MCU to stick up for Pratt. When discourse surrounding who was the “worst Chris” in Hollywood briefly took over the internet in 2020, the Hulk and Iron Man—a.k.a. Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr.—teamed up in Star-Lord’s defense.