After what seems like an eternity, the Y: The Last Man trailer finally got released. With a little over a month to go before its September 13th premiere on FX, it feels like a good time to go back and remember just how difficult it was bringing the Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra iconic comic series to the small screen. In 2015, the series was announced to enter development over at FX. Since, the show has not only gone through different showrunners, a different main cast, but also a different title. From just the initial Y, it has since moved back to the source material’s original title, Y: The Last Man.
Michael Green (Smallville, Heroes, American Gods) was once slated to serve as showrunner, and was co-writing the pilot with Brian K. Vaughan., After working on the show for four years, he left the production in 2019 following “creative differences” being replaced by Eliza Clark (Extant, Animal Kingdom). With principal photography for the pilot taking place in 2018, it’s perhaps fair to assume that, following the changes to the leadership behind the show, we’ll be getting little to no footage of that period to show up in the final product.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming got postponed to later 2020. It only concluded last month, July 2021. Around the time filming began, it was also announced that the show would feature an almost entirely different cast from the one initially announced in 2018. Barry Keoghan (Eternals), Diane Lane, Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later), Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel), Juliana Canfield, Marin Ireland, Amber Tamblyn, and Timothy Hutton were all set to star in the show, but perhaps due to delays and the way the approach towards the show evolved, some ended up getting replaced. Ashley Romans and Olivia Thirlby (Dredd) stepped into the roles which initially belonged to Lynch and Poots. Ben Schnetzer replaced Keoghan as Yorick Brown, the series lead. Paul Gross also joined the show at a later stage as Hutton, another of the big names from the original cast list, left following a restructuring surrounding his role.
Getting the show off the ground was obviously an extremely turbulent affair, something that might probably end up hurting the series’ quality. But it’s rather poetic if a show that focuses on a global cataclysmic event, that got postponed due to a global pandemic, somehow found redemption to its lackluster development story in a series that does justice to the brilliant, Eisner Award-winning comic series it’s based upon.
As stated above, the show focuses on the aftermath of a cataclysmic event that ends up killing every single mammal on planet earth with a Y chromosome. In layman’s terms, only females survived. Enter Yorick Brown, who mysteriously manages to survive with no idea of how that came to be. Alongside Ampersand, his pet monkey, he becomes involved in a world of governmental espionage and international intrigue. All of this with the backdrop of humanity possibly being on the verge of extinction for simply not being able to reproduce. We’re led in a globetrotting adventure, across multiple continents as Yorick, the Last Man, fights not only for his own future but also for his race. It is set to premiere on September 13th, 2021, on FX.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Variety, Deadline, GameSpot, Collider, Deadline, ScreenRant
