ballsy lawsuits

Weekend at Bernie’s Director and Writer Sue for Profits

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - JUNE 10: Director Ted Kotcheff attends the Australian premiere of 'Coraline' as part of the Sydney Film Festival 2009 at Greater Union George Street on June 10, 2009 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Gaye Gerard/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ted Kotcheff
Ted Kotcheff, the once and eternal director of Weekend at Bernie’s Photo: Gaye Gerard/2009 Getty Images

If Weekend at Bernie’s taught us anything, it’s that you can’t just slap a pair of sunglasses on a problem and hope it won’t ruin your beach party. Such is the dilemma faced by Weekend at Bernie’s director Ted Kotcheff and screenwriter Robert Klane, who filed a lawsuit Friday against MGM and Twentieth Century Fox 25 years after the release of the 1989 comedy. The two claim they have “never gotten a proper accounting and have not been paid a cent†of the residuals and profits from the movie. The suit also describes Weekend at Bernie’s as “one of the most hilarious and endearing goofball comedies of the ‘80s,†which is just delightful. There are scant details explaining why Klane and Kotcheff filed the suit now after a quarter century has past, leaving us to assume that someone must have started playing calypso music and they were physically compelled to dance down to the courthouse.

Weekend at Bernie’s Director Sues for Profits