Y: The Last Man - Film Adaptation

Film Adaptation

The film rights to the series were acquired by New Line Cinema (a sister company to Vertigo), and as of July 24, 2007 screenwriter Carl Ellsworth and director D. J. Caruso, the team behind Disturbia, were attached to the project with David S. Goyer as a producer.

Caruso intended on finishing the script in the summer and filming during the fall of 2008. The script would be a rewrite of the original draft written by Vaughan himself.

Caruso maintained that the source material was too much to be told in one film and his team decided to concentrate on the best first film they could, which would end somewhere around issue 14 of the comic series. The entire comic series as a whole would be plotted into three films. Actor Shia LaBeouf, who has worked with these writers for the films Disturbia and Eagle Eye, has previously stated that he is unwilling to play the role of Yorick. According to LaBeouf, the role is far too similar to the character Sam Witwicky, which he portrays in the Transformers series. In an interview conducted by collider.com, LaBeouf stated that there is still a chance that he would be starring. Caruso planned to use a real monkey, and not a CGI construct, to play Ampersand. Caruso also said he would like to have Alicia Keys for the part of Agent 355. Zachary Levi, who plays the lead in the TV series Chuck, has expressed interest in playing Yorick as he is a fan of the comic book series, even going as far as having his character Chuck Bartowski read the Y: The Last Man graphic novel in the episode "Chuck Versus the Nacho Sampler".

Caruso remained "loosely attached" to the project, but New Line refused to acquiesce on its development as a stand-alone movie as opposed to the trilogy Caruso (who has since moved on to direct the science fiction film I Am Number Four) preferred. Caruso, maintaining "I didn't think that you could take Yorick's story and put it in to a two-hour movie and do it justice... I just feel like it's too much for one screenplay," ultimately walked away from the project.

French director Louis Leterrier also expressed interest in adapting the series for television.

In March 2012 former Jericho writers Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia entered final negotiations to write New Line's adaptation of the series. J.C. Spink, Chris Bender and David Goyer were attached to produce; Mason Novick and Jake Weiner are executive producers. Reports in September 2012 suggest New Line was enthusiastic about the draft screenplay produced by Federman and Scalia and has begun the process of meeting potential directors to hire for the project.