Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s classic comic book series “Y: The Last Man” — about the last man on Earth (and his pet monkey Ampersand) traveling the world to find his fiancé and solve humankind’s near-extinction — has struggled to find big-screen life for the better part of a decade, and now, it’s hit yet another major setback — or taken a step forward, depending on your take on things.
Dan Trachtenberg, the man attached to direct the “Y” adaptation for New Line, has confirmed that the film is no longer moving forward, and that the rights have reverted back to the creators.
“The rights reverted back to Brian quite a few months ago,” he told /Film. “I had such a great time working on that project and am truly sad the things we were cooking up can no longer happen.”
At the beginning of the year, Vaughan revealed that if “Y” did not start shooting “in the next few months,” he and Guerra would retain the rights “for the first time in a decade.” That time has come, and now the choice is up to the creators of Yorick Brown as to whether or not they should move forward with any kind of adaptation.
So, what’s next? Will a live-action “Y: The Last Man” ever see the light of day? As far as we see it, there are a few possibilities:
1. Vaughan and Guerra can try their hand at another feature film;
2. They can do their best to bring “Y” to television, which is what many, many, oh so many fans would love to see;
3. Or they can put it back on the shelf, and never pick it up again.
Sadly, that third option is surprisingly likely. Trachtenberg tells /Film: “I’m not sure Brian will ever want to do anything more with it and I’m not sure that he needs to. His latest comics ‘Saga’ and ‘The Private Eye’ are great and we should be reading them. His ‘never-been-made’ screenplays are some of my favorite reads ever (‘Roundtable,’ specifically). I hope we can convince him to write us some more awesome original movies and TV — but I think comics is where his heart lies.”
Trachtenberg’s comments jive with Vaughan’s own revelations about why he stopped working on “Under the Dome,” his CBS TV series based on the Stephen King novel.
“I realized that I’m really not as good at working on other people’s ideas as I am about making new stuff. After ten years of toiling away in Hollywood, I realized that there’s no better place for new ideas than comics,” he said at this past summer’s Comic-Con, according to ComicBookResources.com. “I think for the foreseeable future I’m just going to sit inside my flophouse writing studio and just write new comic books.”
Not exactly encouraging for people hoping to see Vaughan pick up the “Y: The Last Man” torch and carry it forward through the Hollywood system. Then again, perhaps that’s best; perhaps Vaughan’s stories should stay exactly where they’ve lived and thrived for so many years — on the paneled page.
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