Today during our visit to Dreamworks, we got the chance to talk to Eagle Eye director D.J. Caruso with a group of select online journalists. During the discussion, the big screen adaptation of Brian K Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man came up, and Caruso dropped some potentially exciting news:
“What happened is New Line is now part of Warner Bros, and Warner Bros is now really high on the project. And Carl Ellsworth will probably be handing in a script to Warner Bros/New Line [real soon].”
Caruso says that in a perfect world, the film will hit theaters in Summer 2010.
“I was talking to Shia [LaBeouf] about this yesterday when we were looping him, because he really wants to do it as well, I would like to prep this movie in October, and start shooting it by January. Warner Bros keeps saying ‘We need movies for 2010′ I’m like ‘We’re the movie!’” said Caruso. “[Shia] wants to do it, I want to do it. I think we just need to worry about him being exhausted, so I told him, if I prep it in the fall and we start in January, that’s a nice big break.”
Y: The Last Man is my favorite comic book series of all time. Shia would play Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand, who instantly become the last two men on Earth after something mysterious simultaneously kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome - including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm. Society is plunged into chaos as infrastructures collapse and the surviving women everywhere try to cope with the loss of the men. Yorick goes on a mission to find his girlfriend Beth, who was on vacation in Australia. However, DJ says that they aren’t planning “to follow that through-line [with his girlfriend Beth] out too much in the first film.” Yes, I said the FIRST FILM.
“I definitely see it as a trilogy. I see the first movie ending basically where you pick up six weeks after the incident then progressing down only a five or six week journey from that point on until the end of the first movie,” revealed Caruso. “It’s been hard in a good way just because there is so much good stuff to choose from. And every-time you start throwing certain scenes in the screenplay, you’ll see that it sort of dislodges and starts to head a different way.”
“We did something earlier where we sort of separated Yorick from Ampersand for a brief moment of time when Yorrick gets very sick. Also, the 355/Yorrick relationship, we’ve been working on that and not getting that right. Yorrick to me is so solid. It’s really like 355 and her joining with Yorrick that has been… and act three and where do you end the first movie, and where do you go from there.
Caruso claims that co-creator Brian K Vaughn is apparently “really happy” with the direction they have taken.
“I just want to fine tune it before I give it to the studio because I always think that first impression… Because to them Y: The Last Man… Now its Warner Bros. So you’re reeducating a whole different group of people.”
Caruso says that if the project was greenlit, it would probably be produced by Warner Bros and not “New Line” as it would probably be over the certain budget threshold that separated the two production labels.
“I’m still gonna give it to Tobey and Rick who are at New Line but I don’t know the policies at all. All I know is my agent keeps going ‘Oh my god, Warner Bros wants this’, which is great!”
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42 Responses to “DJ Caruso’s Y: The Last Man in Summer 2010?”
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Shia LaBeouf? Alright, I’m not seeing it.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
@Aeghast:
Agreed. I’m so sick of everyone putting him in everything. He always comes off as the same character: “cocky yet nervous ‘nice guy’ that gets everything he wants and revels in it”
He’s going to ruin this.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Nargh, i never liked the comic book. :?
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Love this book. I think he’s perfect casting.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Why in the hell can you not get 355’s relationship with Yorick right? It’s all there in the fucking pages, and it’s brilliant!!!!???!?!?! No Beth search throughout? What’s his motivation then? Why not just make him a teenage vampire, and give him little hottie teenage girls to nuzzle on? Oh yeah, that’s right, Shia is involved. All hope is not lost after all, dogs balls.
Killing another one, great. So tiresome. Can’t wait to see Planetary, Ex Machina & Promethea butchered over the next few years, too. Maybe they’ll throw Fell in there as well, and then all of the great comics of the last few years will be rendered inert on the big screen.
Thank the maker The Dark Knight doesn’t suck. Take a page, people.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The only way Y: The Last Man would work is as a series.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
-everything caruso said is just fine - in fact its exhilerrating! this is one of the finest series to EVER be written. shia is perfect for the role (though if he fell through i was pondering levitt or josh peck)
-a trilogy is an absolute victory for the fans.
-toho is right about everything they need being on the pages, but i’m sure it’ll be fine.
-in the wake of the dark knight, i feel that these adaptations will be taken in a serious direction none of us expected. this is my most anticipated movie for the next 2 years - yes, over inglorious bastards.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
btw, many MANY stories have a hard time closing everything out - ‘Y’ did it with style, and it was absolutely brilliant.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:28 pm
@Aeghast: Once I read that, I said to myself, “well, it’ll be bad.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
i’m a bit worried about this altering of storylines they talking about but if brian k vaughan is onboard, it should be cool. they should get vaughan involved in the writing process but. his episodes of lost were well written i thought.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Enough with fucking LaBeouf already. Get someone else.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Cute! The Shia hate has already begun. For the love of Christ, this guy has worked with him twice and has a working relationship with the guy. Shut the fuck up and get out of the basement, guys.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:09 pm
HOW DOES SHIA KEEP GETTING WORK?????!!!
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Oh God. Shia’s going to ruin another movie. Y:The Last man is such a great comic book series, but if LaBaeuf is in it I will avoid it like the plague. He is really an annoying and talentless actor.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
@Catwoman: We know. We hate Shia becuase he’ss a fucking BAD ACTOR. Relatioships mean shit. Take for example, Will Ferrell! Will Ferrel has relationships and gets work, but it doesn’t mean his work is good! (ie. Semi-Pro, Bewitched, Kicking & Screaming, Blades of Glory, etc.)
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Will the studios not stop until they’ve made every last comic into a film?
Is nothing scared anymore?
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Love Y: The Last Man. Can’t wait.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Y: Shia LaBeouf?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 pm
will shia and ampersand swing on vines like latarzan
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Never read the comic, read a lot of good things about it though. Think it sounds like a good candidate for a movie adaptation…
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:37 am
Shia LaBeouf?
Fuck, that is a huge mistake. Y: is such a great comic, but that dude does not have the acting chops to handle this role.
I was also hoping for a HBO mini series of Y. Unless they make 4 films, the editing for time/content may kill this wonderful story.
sigh. I really do loathe Hollywood.
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:23 am
Nononono. No more beef.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:59 am
I am so fricking psyched for this shit. Def one of the best graphic novel series of all time and its a completly orig story. I think it will be a big hit.
I know everybody hates Shia LaBeouf but strangly I think that he could pull off Yorrick Brown pretty easily. A HBO mini series would suck some serious balls.. this needs to go to the big screen.
Hell yeah… Y rocks ass.. !!
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:12 am
Ok Shia is like perfect for the role and i like his movies.
I searched this on wikipedia and it looks like a great story but jeez after he proposes to Beth and goes looking for her he at least fucks 3 girls and claims he loves her???? hum…..yeah right!
but if they get the story right and everything else i guess it will be at least ok.
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
Oh come ON! He is the last guy on earth for christ sake! This is a chance you might never ever get again. At first i thought Y: The last man was some kind of porn comic where a guy tries to repopulate the human race. At least that would be realistic.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:09 am
From what I’ve read it’s a really good series. I’m iffy on Shia but I’ve never really hated him, he has to really act this time though. There’s a lot of subtext about cloning and abortion and I’m hoping they don’t dumb it down for mass consumption.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 am
I’m not a fan of Shia either. I’m thinking perhaps Ron Livingston (Office Space) — he has the combination of the humor and the seriousness (from Band of Brothers), although maybe he’s a bit too old. My friend suggested the guy that plays Daniel Farraday from Lost. Other suggestions?
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
you know YoungZe i never thought about it from THAT point of view….its just that he declaress his love for Beth and all bla bla bla and then goes fuck while trying to find her.
But hey if i was the last man on earth i probably would fuck half the continent too!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Noooooooooo!
NOt that guy that plays daniel farraday he may not be old and stuff but he looks old, thin and i dont think he is the perfect guy for Y at all!!
stick with Shia!
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 am
this movie with shia wont survive unless it has lots of sex scenes, with lots of frontal nudity.. tastefully of course.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
yeah shia will have to move from the geek kid next door to a move mature role and since its about the last man on earth sex is needed!
August 31st, 2008 at 1:34 am
Im not a Shia hater, but i just don’t see him playing Yorick. He’s too goofy and he doesn’t have the seriousness of Y. Brown. I just dont see him delivering Yorick’s lines naturally.
Shia is funny because of his goofiness. People laugh at him, not his jokes.
Yorick is funny because of his smartass one liners and the things he does. People laugh at what he does and what he says.
That is what i think the difference between the two is.
My suggestions on who can be a better Yorick:
Topher Grace
Justin Long
They both have the same built as Yorick. They both have experience in comedy movies. They’re not goofy.
August 31st, 2008 at 1:48 am
I wanna add Ryan Gosling to my suggestions.
Please, please DJ. Think twice about casting Shia. PLEASE!!
I really loved this novel and i really don’t think Shia will be a good fit.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
SHIA = FAIL
October 1st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
personally? There’s a lot of sexual content in Y that I’m sure wouldn’t make it to the movie. I’m not a Shia hater but. I don’t think he could pull off anything that sexual. I just don’t. I look at him and all I see is that kid from Even Stevens.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I loved the series up until the end. It’s like Vaughn got tired of writing, saw he had 20 pages to wrap it up in, and tried to sew everything together as best he could.
Shia might work. I sort of doubt his ability to portray a character that goes through as much as Yorick goes through. Shia is a boy, which is what Yorick is at the beginning. But Yorick becomes a man. I don’t see Shia being able to be a man.
This film will only work if it is rated R. This story draws heavily from sexuality. If that is compromised, this movie will fail.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:06 am
shia could pull it off. i think hes a good actor that makes bad movies. so hopefully they wont screw this up