Sondra Locke found the characters of the two brothers a little redundant and wanted to change one of them to a female character, and she wanted to cast Joy Behar. She also wanted to use different shooting locations and make changes in the script, but wasn't allowed to do any of these things because of uncredited producer Clint Eastwood's interference. WB actually didn't require that Eastwood or his company be involved at all; Locke thought she should have a completely different producer and a different company attached, but Eastwood wouldn't hear of it and wanted to control everything "to the degree that it was unreasonable" according to Locke.
Sondra Locke was conspicuously absent when longtime boyfriend Clint Eastwood was sworn in as mayor of Carmel on April 15, 1986, citing conflicts with Ratboy's production schedule, even though she'd completed the film some five months prior. Locke actually was in Tennessee visiting her mother-in-law on her deathbed, but told reporters a different story because she didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she was still legally married to Gordon Anderson. Margaret Leigh Anderson passed away April 24.
Cast members do not have fond recollections of the movie's late director Sondra Locke. According to Robert Townsend, who played Manny, Locke would constantly badger him to "act black."
Pre-production was kept quiet. The project wasn't announced in the trades until September 2, 1985, a mere four days before principal photography began.