Besty Reed of The Guardian reports that Jennifer Aniston’s production company, Echo Films, are to reimagine classic comedy 9 to 5 for a modern day audience, according to reports first covered by The Insidre. The script is being written by Juno and Young Adult writer Diablo Cody.
No plot details have yet been revealed, but the 1980 original centered on three female colleagues in an office who team up to take revenge on their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss. Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Dabney Coleman starred in the film, which was scripted by Patricia Resnick with Colin Higgins, who also directed. It was based on an idea by Fonda, who commissioned the film as a vehicle for herself and Tomlin before bringing Parton on board.
The film made over $100m and helped launch the acting career of Parton – whose theme song of the same name went to No 1 in the US for a fortnight and became one of the biggest tracks of the decade. The film spawned a five-series spinoff TV show, and a stage musical, featuring new songs by Parton, which opened on Broadway in 2009.
It also loosely inspired the 2011 film Horrible Bosses, which featured Aniston as the abusive boss of Charlie Day’s dental nurse, whom he attempts to have murdered. Aniston also collaborated with Parton on 2018’s Dumplin, for which they co-sang the song Push and Pull.
Since then, Aniston has starred in only two movies, 2019’s Murder Mystery and its 2023 sequel, both opposite Adam Sandler and for Netflix. She has also been seen in Apple TV’s The Morning Show.
A possible sequel to 9 to 5 featuring the three original leads had been mooted since the early 1980s, but was finally dropped in 2019. Three years later they appeared together in the final episode of Grace and Frankie.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask if you would consider supporting the Guardian’s journalism as we enter one of the most consequential news cycles of our lifetimes in 2024.
With the potential of another Trump presidency looming, there are countless angles to cover around this year’s election – and we'll be there to shed light on each new development, with explainers, key takeaways and analysis of what it means for America, democracy and the world.
From Elon Musk to the Murdochs, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives.
And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media: the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. We always strive to be fair. But sometimes that means calling out the lies of powerful people and institutions – and making clear how misinformation and demagoguery can damage democracy.
From threats to election integrity, to the spiraling climate crisis, to complex foreign conflicts, our journalists contextualize, investigate and illuminate the critical stories of our time. As a global news organization with a robust US reporting staff, we’re able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective – one so often missing in the American media bubble.
Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they can afford to pay for news, or not.
Betsy Reed
Editor, Guardian US
