Patients at the Tufts Medical Center in Boston received a big surprise on Saturday when cast members of the newest Ghostbusters film visited the medical facility.
Celebrity comediennes Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon dropped by Tufts' Floating Hospital for Children to bring smiles to the young patients.
The four actresses were in the middle of shooting the film in the city when they found out about a sign posted by children from the hospital using the Ghostbusters' classic line: "Who you gonna call?"
The women decided to surprise the kids by visiting them this weekend in their costumes, much like when "Captain America" Chris Evans dropped by the hospital in his uniform during a previous visit.
While the hospital visit was meant to cheer up the young patients at the Tufts Medical Center, many people on social media were very skeptical of the actresses' intentions.
On the medical facility's official Facebook page, several people even accused Wiig and her co-stars of taking advantage of the situation of the sick children for the sake of a PR stunt. They also unfavorably compared the four actresses to the original cast of the Ghostbusters film franchise.
One of the commenters said that it must have been disappointing for the patients at the children's hospital to have heard that the Ghostbusters were going to visit them only to find out it was just Wiig and her co-stars who showed up.
Other negative comments from people on Facebook focused on the differences between the characters from the previous films and the new ones and the movie props that they brought along with them during the hospital visit—not so much the fact that they took time off to cheer up the patients.
While there were quite a number of commenters who responded negatively on the new Ghostbusters' charitable act, many people seemed to appreciate the effort and wrote comments of support to the actresses.
A mother of one of the young patients featured on the hospital's Facebook gallery wrote that it was an uplifting experience for the children to see the four actresses. She pointed out that it really meant a lot to the patients at the children's hospital, and that it was not an opportunity for a photo op on the cast's part.
The Ghostbusters remake has received much criticism from the public in recent months, especially after the announcement that the four lead characters would be played by female actors, unlike in the previous films.
While shooting for the film already began in June, rumors still persisted around the possibility that the movie makers would forgo their plan of female characters and stick to the original cast premise. Some of these rumors even had actor Channing Tatum as part of the new film, but this was subsequently denied in the press.
Ivan Reitman, director of the original Ghostbusters films and producer of the latest version, has expressed his support for the all-female lead cast featured in the Paul Feig-directed flick.
Ghostbusters is set to hit theaters in July 2016.
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