Beach, North Carolina. Reception On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 52% approval rating based on 25 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Weekend at Bernie's wrings a surprising amount of laughs out of its corpse-driven slapstick premise, but one joke can only carry a film so far." On Metacritic it has a score of 32 out of 100 based on reviews from 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B" on scale of A+ to F. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the film "tasteless" and "crude" and felt that in the end it was impossible to "drag one tired joke around for nearly two hours. Like Bernie, the movie ends up dead on its feet." Roger Ebert echoed this sentiment, arguing that movies centered on dead bodies are rarely funny. Ebert gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, stating "Weekend at Bernie's makes two mistakes: It gives us a joke that isn't very funny, and it expects the joke to carry an entire movie." The film grossed US$30 million at the box office and was profitable on home video. The film has remained popular in part because of repeated showings on cable television. Entertainment Weekly described it as having "aged into something close to respectability". Soundtrack The film's closing credits feature the song "Hot and Cold", performed by American singer Jermaine Stewart. It was written by Andy Summers and Winston "Pipe" Matthews, and produced by Richard Rudolph and Michael Sembello. The song was released as a single by Arista in the United States during June 1989 to promote the film. Lawsuit On January 24, 2014, director Ted Kotcheff and screenwriter Robert Klane filed a lawsuit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox for breach of contract for profits they claimed were due from the film. See also The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell References External links 1989 films 1980s black comedy films 1980s buddy comedy films 1980s crime comedy films 20th Century Fox films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films American black comedy films American buddy comedy films American crime comedy films 1980s English-language films Films about contract killing Films directed by Ted Kotcheff Films set in Long Island Films set in New York City Films set on beaches Films shot in New York City Films shot in North Carolina Mafia comedy films Necrophilia in film Slapstick films Cultural depictions of the Mafia 1989 comedy