Put on your shoulder pads and get ready to break the glass ceiling! The 1980 cult classic “9 to 5” is getting a modern reboot.
Fittingly, a team of women is tackling the female empowerment saga. Jennifer Aniston’s production company Echo Films has been linked to the remake, The InSneider reports, and Diablo Cody is working on the script. Cody, who previously wrote the scripts for “Jennifer’s Body,” “Young Adult” and “Lisa Frankenstein,” is known for creating complex female characters — like the characters Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin played in the original film.
The original cast has talked about sequels and reboots of the popular film over the years, but they never got off the ground.
There are no details available about storylines or a cast for the “9 to 5” reboot just yet, but the original not only offered laughs (and a catchy hit song of the same name, sung by Parton), but it also was a subversive, searing look into the sexism experienced by women in the workplace. The 2022 documentary “Still Working 9 to 5” explored the cultural impact of the film, and also examined the sexism and harassment that female workers still experience on the job.
It makes sense that “9 to 5” made such a lasting impact. The idea for the film (as well as the name itself) came from Jane Fonda’s friendship with Karen Nussbaum, an activist who created the organization 9to5 along with Ellen Cassedy in 1973. 9to5 was a Boston-based advocacy group aimed at addressing the injustices women faced in the workplace. Fonda was inspired by the group’s activities, and soon she had an idea for a movie.
“My ideas for films always come from things that I hear and perceive in my daily life … A very old friend of mine had started an organization in Boston called 9to5, which was an association of women office workers. I heard them talking about their work and they had some great stories,” Fonda told The Times of London in 1981.
And some of these stories made their way into the film.
“Ten of us in Boston, women office workers, were sitting in a circle complaining about low pay, unequal pay, training men to be our own supervisors, and being asked to do all kinds of favors for bosses,” Cassedy says in “Still Working 9 to 5.” “Then we began distributing newsletters all over Boston and ran a bad boss contest.”
That “bad boss” contest led to many heartbreaking and hilarious admissions from women across the city, and some of these tales inspired Fonda and screenwriters Patricia Resnick and Colin Higgins.
Nussbaum says that Fonda and the writers personally met with many 9to5 members to talk about their life in the workplace.
“And that’s why the movie is so successful, because it wasn’t some writer making up what they thought women were experiencing or feeling or thinking,” Nussbaum says. “It was the women themselves. And so, it was a huge success.”
Here’s hoping the “9 to 5” remake is just as powerful and honest as the original!
‘9 to 5’ is getting a reboot from Jennifer Aniston originally appeared on Simplemost.com
