Paul Weitz had the original idea for the movie in the scene where Claire confronts and threatens Howard and the funeral, but was able to develop it when Lily Tomlin called him and asked him to write a movie for Jane Fonda and her because they wanted to keep working together after wrapping Grace and Frankie.
Evelyn paraphrases a line from William Shakespeare's Richard III. It is from his opening soliloquy, which begins "Now is the winter of our discontent," and continues to "And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover; To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain; And hate the idle pleasures of these days."