One of my favorite books of the last ten years is Y: The Last Man, a DC title under the Vertigo imprint written by Brian K. Vaughan, with art primarily by Pia Guerra. It focused on a man named Yorick Brown and the fact that after a plague struck the world, he and his pet monkey were the last living beings on the planet with a Y chromosome. Over the course of five years, both sixty issues and fives years of story time, Yorick traveled the globe seeking out both answers to why the men died, why he survived, and most importantly to him, where his girlfriend was.
Amazing amazing book that I can not recommend enough.
When the movie was announced a few years ago I was extremely excited, as well, a well done adaption of this book could make amazing film. Unfortunately it’s been in development limbo almost since the moment of its announcement. The team behind Disturbia, director D.J. Caruso. screenwriter Carl Ellsworth are both attached to the movie, as is produced David S. Goyer. The script has been through rewrites off of the original screenplay submitted by Vaughan, and the studio…well, here’s what Caruso told Latino Review about New Line Cinemas.
“My problem that I have with New Line [is], they’re good people, but I felt you had to make this film as a trilogy. [I felt] that you really had to deal with books one through four on their own. And I think there was a different philosophy there. They really wanted to cover a lot more ground [in one film], which I didn’t think would make a great movie. I thought you’d be cramming too much into one movie.”
This really isn’t a story that can be told with any justice in a single movie, and a trilogy, despite being the hot thing to do with movies these days, is really the best way to handle it. It’s a very dense story, and a failure to include enough of the source material in favor of a rush job would just hinder the movies quality. While it might seem like a risk to invest in a niche title as a trilogy, a title that while critically acclaimed is hardly well known to the general public, without risk there is no reward.
Grey Scherl is the Head Editor at www.ComicsNexus.insidepulse.com, as well as a Writer for www.PulseWrestling.com. You can follow him on http://twitter.com/GreyScherl for updates on all of his News and Columns, or e-mail boostergrey@gmail.com with any questions or comments.
