'Human Target' Writer/Producers Hired To Script 'Y: The Last Man'

There was every reason to figure we'd never see a film version of the comic series Y: The Last Man, created by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra. New Line has been developing the project for years, with script work put in by Carl Ellsworth, Jeff Vintar, and Vaughn, and D.J. Caruso once attached to direct. Louis Leterrier was interested as well.

But nothing ever got to the production stage. The 60-issue comic series tells the story of Yorick, a man who wakes up to find that something has killed every mammal on Earth with a Y chromosome. Except for Yorick, and a Capuchin monkey named Ampersand, that is. The two remaining males go in search of Yorick's girlfriend, and complications naturally ensue. The story is so big that at one point the thinking was that nothing but a trilogy would suffice. That's not an easy trilogy to convince a studio to finance.

Now New Line is trying again with Y: The Last Man, and has hired new writers for a fresh take.

THR says that Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia, who have credits writing and producing on shows like Charlie's Angels, Human Target, Warehouse 13 and Jericho, have been hired to go back to page one with the project.

Will this be a single-film attempt, or another stab at creating a series? Right now we don't know.

Here's what D.J. Caruso had to say about trying to adapt the project once he was off it. These comments are from late 2010, the last time we had any real news on the adaptation. Given what he expresses here, don't be surprised to see New Line aiming for a single film this time.

I love, love, love that project. I think the biggest problem for me was I saw it as a trilogy. I didn't think that you could take Yorick's story and put it in to a two-hour movie and do it justice. That was sort of the difference. I think that New Line, working with Warner Bros. in their new relationship, just felt reluctant thinking that we can't leave this thing open. If you are familiar with the comic book you know it's just mind-boggling. If you look at what my buddy Frank Darabont did with The Walking Dead you think, I don't know is that the best thing for it? Because there is just so much great stuff, so no I'm not involved with that anymore. Although I wouldn't rule it out completely. It's one of those things where if someone came back to me and said, okay we believe in your vision of the movie, then I would definitely jump back in but I don't anticipate that happening. It's a tough screenplay to lick and we had some very good writers. But it was like you had to convince the studio that this movie could stand alone on its own. But at the same time there would be unresolved issues ultimately with what happens to Yorick and how it all ties together. It's really tough. If someone came back to me today and said they would love for me to jump in and do this the way I wanted to do it, I would. But I just feel like it's too much for one screenplay.