Everything We Know About Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin's '9 to 5' Reboot

Everything We Know About Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin's '9 to 5' Reboot,Could Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton remake — or give a sequel to — Colin Higgins' "9 to 5"? What we know about the project.

Everything We Know About Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin’s ‘9 to 5’ Reboot

Nostalgia for the ’80s has been inspiring entertainment since well before “Stranger Things” hit streaming. Classic films from “Pretty Woman” to “American Psycho” have received musical adaptations on Broadway. And last year “Top Gun: Maverick” soared at the box office and into the Best Picture Oscars race: solidifying short-shorts, jet engines, and long overdue ’80s sequels as timeless symbols of Hollywood excellence.

So, asked politely but firmly: where the hell is our “9 to 5” revival?

Starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton, Colin Higgins’ 1980 workplace comedy is an all-time great revenge flick sharpened by the specificity of its times. The feature-length feminist rallying cry tells the tale of three office workers who fantasize about getting even with their terrible boss Mr. Hart (Dabney Coleman): a sexist and self-centered jerk who, let’s be honest, really had that credenza-to-the-head coming.

From an unforgettable animated sequence featuring Tomlin as Snow White and a scene in which Fonda proudly announces, “I smoked a marijuana cigarette at a party once,” “9 to 5” launched one of the greatest comedic partnerships of the 20th — and 21st — centuries. It remains ripe for the revisiting with the “Grace & Frankie” pair still frequently collaborating on screens big and small.

“I don’t even know if we made the connection between ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Moving On,'” Tomlin told IndieWire in a recent interview for the latter film: another feminist revenge epic, this one from “Grandma” writer/director Paul Weitz. Now in theaters, Weitz’s latest stars Fonda and Tomlin as accomplices in a murder plot.

“We weren’t gonna kill Mr. Hart,” Tomlin notes with a wry smile. “We just wanted to put him out of commission for a short time.”

Rumors of a potential “9 to 5” sequel/remake/spiritual successor have swirled around cinema’s metaphoric water cooler for years, with Fonda and Tomlin freely sharing their enthusiasm for the project through interviews. Interest in the maybe-movie’s status was renewed in early 2023 during press for Kyle Marvin’s “80 for Brady,” a sports comedy which reunited Tomlin, Fonda, and Parton (albeit in music only) for the second time in recent memory. Parton also had a cameo role in the series finale of “Grace & Frankie” last year, appearing as a literal angel.

Following Fonda and Tomlin’s press tour for “Moving On,” here’s everything new we know about a potential “9 to 5” sequel.

Lily Tomlin Is Currently Leading The “9 to 5” Charge
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection
When asked about her dreams for a potential “9 to 5” follow-up, Tomlin said to IndieWire, “I have a big hope!” She quipped, “More than Jane. Jane’s gone on to climate change, and she’s very involved in it and rightly so.”
“I would like any material that’s just really rich and true and not dishonest and somehow its intention is communicating something better to humanity,” she said about future projects she’s interested in more generally. “I’m interested in any human issue, any human condition, anything about humanity that’s positive or says something meaningful about how we’re living or what we’re doing to each other, any number of things like that. But we like to get the comedy in there.”

Jane Fonda Hasn’t Seen a Script She’s Satisfied with Yet

Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection

“We haven’t been able to get a script that we were satisfied with,” Fonda told Entertainment Tonight in 2023. “If you don’t have the script, you can’t start.”

In the same interview, Tomlin gave the film “50-50” odds of happening and said, “We always are holding that secret little sequel. We’re trying to make it happen before one of us checks out, so we hope we pull it off.”

Patricia Resnick and Rashida Jones Were Attached to a Sequel…

In 2018 on ABC News, Dolly Parton announced a sequel was in the works. Original co-writer Patricia Resnick and Rashida Jones were reportedly attached.

“All these years we’ve talked about doing a sequel to ‘9 to 5,’ but it never made any real sense,” Parton said at the time. “Until just recently — all the equal work for equal pay and all the harassment in the workplace [controversy around the #MeToo movement] — we decided that we are going to try to do another one.”

… Which Would Have Starred a New Generation of Young Women

“They presented with me an idea the other day and I said yes,” the Parton said in the same interview with ABC news. She explained, the proposed film would “bring some new girls in… and they’re gonna find us, the old characters. We’ve all come up with a business of our own. So, they come to find us just to get some input.”

That project was effectively canceled in 2019 due to script issues.

Lily Tomlin Wants Paul Weitz to Write a New “9 to 5”

Promoting “Moving On” on “The View,” Tomlin suggested Paul Weitz take a stab at writing a new “9 to 5.” Fonda was visibly surprised.

“It was totally unexpected!” Tomlin told IndieWire, laughing. “I didn’t even think about doing that.”

“[The three of us] haven’t talked about Paul, although I mentioned it to Jane,” Tomlin explained. “It was just like an intuitive thing. I don’t know if Paul would even entertain such an idea because he mostly is gonna do what he wants to do as an artist.”

In an email to IndieWire, Weitz responded to the suggestion, (presumably) joking: “I’d like to write a movie called ‘5 to 9’ where they are all vampires.”

The Project Would Absolutely Involve Dolly Parton…

Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection/Getty Images

Fonda and Tomlin are more frequent collaborators thanks to their robust filmography, but fans can rest assured a new “9 to 5” would absolutely involve Dolly.

“We’re such a good trio, so you always want to exploit that thing that’s entertained and that you’ve done in the past,” Tomlin told IndieWire. “She’s wonderful anyway. People respond to Dolly so beautifully, so you want that to happen again. In a way, it’s like an old relationship, like, ‘Oh, we can’t let that go! We gotta keep that in our bubble.'”

… And Possibly a New Theme Song

NINE TO FIVE, (aka 9 TO 5), from left: Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, 1980, TM & Copyright © 20th Century Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Collection — Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection

And if you’ve got Dolly involved, you know there’s a chance of a new country classic. (Parton even turned the original film into a 2009 Broadway musical.)

“You’d want Dolly to be in a new ‘9 to 5,’ for sure no question,” Tomlin said to IndieWire. “I mean, who’s gonna write the theme song? I remember she came onto the set of the original, and played the theme song on her fingernails. And Jane and I looked at each other and it was just like — it was such a great song. It was just so right for the movie. And I said, ‘Well, the song will be a hit if the movie isn’t a huge hit.'”

“Still Working 9 to 5” Is a Documentary About the Film’s Impact…

Image Credit: Courtesy "Still Working 9 to 5"

Although plans for a new scripted “9 to 5” chapter are anything but firm, the film’s lasting legacy has already been captured in a documentary project. “Still Working 9 to 5” looks at the 40-year evolution of workplace gender inequality and discrimination, and features interviews from everyone in the main cast: Fonda, Tomlin, Parton, and Coleman. It won Best Feature Film at the Nashville Film Festival, as well as Best of the Fest and Best Documentary at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema. It was also nominated for a Critics Choice Documentary Award for Best Historical Documentary.

…With a New Parton (and Kelly Clarkson) Track

For “Still Working 9 to 5,” Parton and longtime admirer Kelly Clarkson recorded a duet version of “9 to 5.” The song can be heard during the documentary’s credits.