Like its protagonist, comic book adaptation Y: The Last Man has had quite the journey as it attempted to find its way to screens. After years as a potential movie, Blade Runner 2049's Michael Green and Luke Cage veteran Aïda Mashaka Croal are shepherding a pilot for a series on US network FX. And top of their casting iceberg is Diane Lane.
Created in comics form by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra, Y focuses on Yorick, an amateur escape artist who has become the lone male human survivor after a mysterious plague killed off everyone else with a Y chromosome — including all male animals. Except, that is, for his pet capuchin monkey, Ampersand, who follows him around.
Now living in a world entirely filled with women, Yorick heads out on a mission to discover why the tragedy befell the world and to look for his girlfriend Beth, who he last heard was halfway across the world in Australia.
And when we say casting iceberg, Lane is just one of the people added to the show, playing Senator Jennifer Brown, a politician who has made a name for herself putting persona ideas above governmental wrangling.
Also aboard? Barry Keoghan as Yorick, Imogen Poots as Hero Brown, a confident Emergency Medical Technician carrying a deep emotional trauma, Lashana Lynch as Secret Service Agent 355, Julianna Canfield as Beth, Yorick's missing love, and Marin Ireland as Nora, the President's top aide who balances work and life.
With Melina Matsoukas as director of the pilot, the show will now have to pass muster with executives if it's to move forward. But it's the most positive sign for the adaptation to happen in all the years it has been in development...
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