Could it be? Could arguably the greatest comic book series of the last decade finally be heading to the big screen? New Line has been developing an adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn's globe-spanning apocalyptic epic, Y: The Last Man, for years now. It's actually been in the works since before our little blog here was founded, but it's never found any solid footing for various reasons. That all appears to be changing now, with Vulture reporting the film is now one of the studio's top priorities.
So what's changed? You'll recall that writers Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia(Jericho) came aboard to pen a whole new draft, which New Line are apparently very excited over. That's gotten the ball rolling again, with meetings being set to find someone to take on the directorial duties. D.J. Caruso had been set to reteam with his Disturbia and Eagle Eye star, Shia Labeouf, but the former is gone and the latter turned down the role because he stupidly thought it was too similar to what he'd done in Transformers. Um,couldn't be more wrong, sir.
Y: The Last Man is a genius piece of comic book lore that ran for 60 issues and followed perpetual goof off and part time magician Yorick Brown, who is forced to start taking things seriously when a cataclysmic event wipes out every Y chromosome mammal on the planet, with the exception of his monkey, Ampersand. The adventure follows Yorick as he travels the globe trying to reunite with his girlfriend, Beth, and dealing with the political, social, and ecological shifts of a world totally without men. While it's obviously an extreme scenario, Vaughn used the backdrop as a way of exploring a number of hot button topics. It's full of comedy, espionage, mystery, science fiction...pretty much everything you could ever want in a story about anything. I consider it a masterpiece, and if you don't shed a tear during the final story arc then you must have no soul.
My biggest concern is that Y: The Last Man really should be presented as a weekly series on HBO or something, not as a feature film. It's too big, with issues that are too diverse and complicated to fit neatly into two hours. Even a trilogy wouldn't be able to do it justice. So while this is great news, I'm most interested in seeing what kind of approach will be taken.
