There was a lot of game-playing in the picture." "I never actually knew what Rush wanted," said Arkin at the end of filming. "He [Rush] is so uncertain it's hard to handle," said Caan. Plans to distribute the film in early 1974 were shelved due to concerns about competition with Peter Hyams' similar "Busting". The film opened the 1974 Chicago Film Festival. "Freebie and the Bean" was finally issued as a Christmas release. The film was released on DVD in 2009 through Warner Home Video's Warner Archive label. A.D. Murphy of "Variety" called it a "tasteless "comedy" about two dumb cops breaking the law". The film became a substantial box office success. It earned rentals of $12.5 million in the United States and Canada. A short-lived nine-episode television series based on the film and sharing its title, starring Tom Mason and Héctor Elizondo in the title roles, was broadcast on CBS on Saturday nights at 9:00 PM in December 1980 and January 1981. Peter O'Toole agreed to be in "The Stuntman" on the basis of Rush's work on "Freebie and the Bean". The film has become a cult favorite. Quentin Tarantino called it "nothing short of a masterpiece... absolutely brutal... part of the way the film worked was for you to laugh at the brutal violence and then feel bad about yourself for laughing." An article in Rolling Stone magazine alleged that Stanley Kubrick called "Freebie and the Bean" the best film of 1974.