I got to the end. I accepted. Some script changes were made - I think the script was humanized. It's still a hard film, a tough film, but with soul underneath, and I think with social comment that doesn't hit you on the head." The script was violent but the filmmakers felt this was necessary to tell the story accurately. "I'm a commercial filmmaker first and foremost," said Solo. "This movie is about young people and the youth audience is the primary one. I simply wanted "Bad Boys" to have a tremendous reality. How do you tell this story without violence? If you don't, you're saying violence doesn't exist." Finance was obtained from EMI Films. Rick Rosenthal says Matt Dillon wanted to play the lead role, but the director was reluctant. He cast Sean Penn on the basis of a reading. "Although I'm crazy about Matt Dillon as an actor, I thought he'd already done the role in My Bodyguard," said Rosenthal. "I was also afraid that the audience might be conscious of a new movie star, where with Penn they'd only be conscious of Mick." The director said Penn is "a very good actor, obsessively so. He went into character for the whole shoot and stayed there, had a real wolf's head tattooed on his arm, checked into hotels as Mick, the whole thing." It was Ally Sheedy's first role in a feature. "Rick really took a chance on me, he really did," she said. The film unit spent six days filming in St Charles, IL, a suburb west of Chicago. They employed about 40 residents as extras. Universal Studios originally released "Bad Boys" in 1983, and Thorn/EMI released it on its videocassettes in 1984, but in 1999 Artisan Entertainment took the rights and released the DVD. In 2001, Anchor Bay Entertainment took its DVD rights and re-released it, and in 2007 Facets Multimedia Distribution re-released it on its DVDs. "Bad Boys" was released on Blu-ray by Lionsgate Home Entertainment for the first time on February 1, 2011, presented "complete and uncut." It is also available for online streaming video rentals and digital download files purchases through Amazon Video and Apple iTunes Store. "Bad Boys" garnered generally positive reviews; review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes currently holds an 89% "Fresh" rating based on 19 reviews. David Denby of "The New Yorker" magazine argued, ""Bad Boys" is never less than tense and exciting, but it's coarse and grisly, an essentially demagogic piece of work".