‘Y: The Last Man’ pilot ordered by FX, and it’s stacked with talent behind the scenes
Motherfucking Y: The Last Man finally has been ordered to pilot. Fucking great news, right? And if that enough, there’s some serious talent bringing the adaptation to life.
io9:
After years of waiting to see Yorick, 355, and Ampersand wander through a landscape without dudes, fans might finally get a chance to see the classic comic book series adapted for the screen. Y: The Last Man is finally getting a pilot.
Variety is reporting that FX, already home to Marvel’s Legion, has ordered a pilot based on the Brian K. Vaughan/Pia Guerra series that was published under DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Michael Green (American Gods, Logan) and Aida Mashaka Croal (Luke Cage) are attached as executive producers/showrunners, and will be working with Vaughan, who’s done TV work on shows like Lost and Under the Dome.
Y: The Last Man ran for five years and told the story of Yorick Brown, who wakes up as humanity’s last surviving male after a mysterious plague wipes out every other male lifeform, except his pet monkey, Ampersand. There’s no on-screen talent attached to the project yet, but Melina Matsoukas (Insecure, Master of None, Beyonce: Formation) will direct the pilot. A project like this will almost certainly attract high-profile female talent from all over Hollywood and beyond.
Update: The Hollywood Reporter has a more in-depth article of their own that charts the winding development history of a Y: The Last Man adaptation. The piece cites previous interviews with Green and Vaughan that seem to indicate the direction the new project might take:
Vaughan told The Hollywood Reporter in November that he “wanted to find someone who loved the source material but didn’t feel so indebted to it that they would be afraid to change it,” with Green fitting that bill. “When [Green] first pitched his take on it to Nina Jacobson and me a long time ago, he came in saying he wanted to do something about toxic masculinity. It felt very relevant, and unfortunately, I think it’s only become more relevant with each passing day. His take on it was really brave and very different, but exciting as well. I really admire how audacious he’s been with his translation.”
Green’s vision for Y: The Last Man, he told THR in July, changed after Trump was elected president. “It would have been a very different show, and very different development process, had the election not been as horrifying as it was,” Green said. “I had to put the script down for a couple months and really reassess it tonally, because it became a different creature, it became violent protest. It couldn’t not be political, and I had to embrace it, and I had to find my way in, and I had to find a way to channel my own dismay, disappointment and rage into it, while still keeping it what it is. For a minute there I almost walked away.”