Original Stars Share Support for 9 to 5 Remake

Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin comment on 9 to 5 remake.

By Jamie Jirak

Earlier this year, it was announced that a "reimagining" of 9 to 5 is currently in the works at 20th Century Studios and Echo Films. This new version of the film is reportedly being written by Juno and Lisa Frankenstein scribe Diablo Cody with Friends alum Jennifer Aniston also signed on as a producer.  The original 1980 film starred Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin as three employees of a "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" played by Dabney Coleman, who passed away last month. Through a fun series of events, the three women find a way to turn the tables on him. Fonda and Tomlin were recently in attendance at the ERA Coalition's premiere screening of the award-winning documentary film Still Working 9 to 5. The duo spoke with ET, and shared support for the remake. 

"Good luck to them," Fonda said. "It's fun. I wish them a lot of luck. They're very talented."

"Oh, I'm very excited," Tomlin added. "I'm pleased to know that someone else is working on it and may they have successful fruition."

The original 9 to 5 was the second-highest-grossing film of 1980, earning over $100 million at the box office. The film's titular song, which was performed by Parton, was also a huge success. While Parton was unable to join Tomlin and Fonda at the event, she did make an appearance via a video link.

This 9 to 5 remake won't be the first follow-up to the film, which also inspired a TV sitcom of the same name starring Rita Moreno and Valerie Curtin. In 2009, 9 to 5 also launched a stage musical, which featured new original songs from Parton.

Diablo Cody Explains Barbie Exit:

Barbie was the biggest hit of 2023, but the movie was almost very different. The project was originally going to star comedian Amy Schumer until she exited the project and a new creative team was brought on. That version was also going to be written by Cody. During an interview with GQ, Cody talked about her own exit from the project and explained why The LEGO Movie was a "roadblock" at the time. 

"I think I know why I sh*t the bed," Cody explained. "When I was first hired for this, I don't think the culture had not embraced the femme or the bimbo as valid feminist archetypes yet. If you look up 'Barbie' on TikTok you'll find this wonderful subculture that celebrates the feminine, but in 2014, taking this skinny blonde white doll and making her into a heroine was a tall order."

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"That idea of an anti-Barbie made a lot of sense given the feminist rhetoric of 10 years ago," Cody said of her Barbie project that never happened. "I didn't really have the freedom then to write something that was faithful to the iconography; they wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn't figure it out because that's not what Barbie is." She added, "I heard endless references to The Lego Movie in development, and it created a problem for me because they had done it so well. Any time I came up with something meta, it was too much like what they had done. It was a roadblock for me, but now enough time has passed that they can just cast [The Lego Movie villain] Will Ferrell as the antagonist in a real-life Barbie movie and nobody cares."

Stay tuned for more updates about 9 to 5. 

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