If you have been hoping to see Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton share the screen again, you may want to hear what Tomlin just said. In a recent interview with People, she was asked point-blank about a reunion or reboot of the beloved 1980 comedy 9 to 5. Her answer was not exactly encouraging.
“I don’t think we’re going to break the back of that one,” Tomlin said.
She noted that staying in touch with all three women is not exactly simple. While she and Fonda talk regularly (the two starred together in the Netflix sitcom Grace and Frankie from 2015 to 2022), reaching Parton is another matter entirely. “Dolly, you have to call her secretary,” Tomlin said. “She’s hard to reach. Plus, she’s off there in Nashville.”
For those of us who grew up watching 9 to 5, the film holds a very special place. Tomlin played Violet Newstead, Fonda played Judy Bernly, and Parton played Doralee Rhodes. Together, the three women plotted sweet revenge against their awful sexist boss, Franklin Hart Jr., played by the late Dabney Coleman. It was funny, it was sharp, and it felt like something new.
The movie was made on a budget of just $10 million and went on to gross over $103 million worldwide. It became one of the biggest films of its year and helped launch all three women into a new level of mainstream stardom. A TV adaptation followed, and eventually so did a Broadway musical.
For a while, a sequel seemed genuinely possible. Back in 2018, Parton said flat out that “we are going to do another one,” calling it inspired by the #MeToo movement. “We’ve all agreed that we’d love to do it if it’s right,” she said at the time. Fonda confirmed that all three were “intending to be in it” and that Rashida Jones had been brought in to write the script alongside original co-writer Patricia Resnick.
But momentum stalled. Reports indicate that plans involving the original trio were dropped around 2019. Then, in 2024, The Guardian reported that Jennifer Aniston’s production company may have picked up the project for a modern reimagining, with screenwriter Diablo Cody attached to write it. No further details have emerged since then.
So the version fans truly want (all three originals together again) sounds unlikely. But the memory of those three women taking on the boss? That one is not going anywhere.