Brian K Vaughan’s apocalyptic saga “Y: The Last Man” has to be up there with “Sandman” and “Preacher” as one of the most consistently excellent graphic novel series in the history of the medium, and as with those two titles, any attempts to bring it to the big screen have been so far fruitless. The story, which involves a virus that wipes out every male on the planet, bar Yorick, an amateur magician, and his pet monkey, came close to happening with D.J. Caruso and Shia LaBeouf on board, but it seems to have fallen apart — which is sort of fortunate, as their last collaboration, “Eagle Eye,” was a film so relentlessly stupid that it lowered the IQ of anyone who watched it.
Now, hot on the heels of the details we brought you last week of Vaughan’s new spec script “The Vault,” Latino Review broke some news over the weekend on possible movement on the adaptation of the comic. The site reports that “Clash of the Titans” director Louis Leterrier is interested in the project. As you might expect, we have… mixed feelings about this.
Leterrier seems like a nice guy and all, and he has a decent eye for an action scene, but we’re slightly perplexed as to how he’s ended up on the A-list; the nicest thing you can say about “The Incredible Hulk” is that it accurately replicates the experience of watching a mediocre episode of “The Fugitive,” and then playing “Street Fighter IV” for half an hour. We haven’t seen “Clash of the Titans” yet, so maybe it’ll be a step up, but from the sound of the first review, it doesn’t sound like it… He’s so far shown little-to-no interest in character, which is ultimately what the source material relies on; there are ninja battles, but the hiring of someone like Leterrier would seem to be disastrous.
We imagine this’ll rely to a certain degree on the success of “Clash of the Titans” this weekend, as well as whether Leterrier’s successful in his attempt to land the director’s chair on “The Avengers.” Still, the draft of the script that we read, by Vaughan himself, was pretty good, although Latino Review suggest that it’s since been rewritten unsuccessfully by another writer…