As Y director DJ Caruso told ComingSoon.net, the problem may all be a matter of script:

Yeah, it's been a while. I think it's one of those that the source material is fantastic stuff, it's great, but it's a tough one to lick into getting into a screenplay. I've tried to feel like it's a trilogy of movies and I think everyone sort of agrees, but at the same time, just getting the first movie right and getting the right beats and knowing what to put in, it's been really tough. You have great minds like David Goyer and you've got Carl Ellsworth and you've got Brian K. Vaughn, and I'm working with them to just kind of crack it and get it down. And we're almost there. I know it's a slow process, but I think eventually we'll get it.

Maybe I'm a little too much of a fan of the original series - albeit one who managed to forget it for both the Best of 2008 and Holiday Gift Guide lists - but I don't see why a straight adaptation of the first collection wouldn't work as an initial movie...

Exclusive: Director D.J. Caruso Has an Eagle Eye [ComingSoon]

Caruso is adapting Brian K. Vaughn’s graphic novel series Y: The Last Man, about a young man, Yorick, and his monkey who are the sole male survivors of a mysterious gendercide. Caruso is planning to cast Shia LaBeouf as Yorick, but won’t show the Transformers actor the script for the three-picture adaptation until he has a more definite version of the script. Currently, Caruso and Carl Ellsworth are revising earlier portions of the script, and getting a clearer view of how they’ll treat Y’s leading ladies. According to SciFi Wire:

The graphic novel features a menagerie of compelling female characters, including Yorick's conflicted sister, Hero; the kick-ass government Agent 355, who is his bodyguard; and 355's sinister fellow agent, 711. The movie will include all of them, but not as they appear in the books.

"Yorick's sister, Hero, is in the script at this point, but she is not as much of a character as she was in the first draft," Caruso said. "Right now, she's sprinkled throughout, but she's not a major, major character."

Caruso added: "The 711 character is in it, and she's insane. She does teach [Yorick] a life lesson or two in a very interesting way. It's a comedic, yet horrifying, scene. She's very cool."

Although Caruso couldn’t possibly squeeze every one of Vaughn’s plotlines into even three films, I can’t help but wonder what Hero’s reduced role means for the Amazons, the anti-male group that features prominently early in the series. And there is still no mention of Alter, the nigh-unstoppable Israeli soldier and frequent antagonist of Yorick and company. But Caruso promises that the trilogy’s third act will closely follow the ending of the series. Hopefully, he’ll also remember that, while Yorick is the protagonist of Y, it’s also a story about the women.

[Sci Fi Wire]

According to Cinema Blend:

Basically he'll show a lot of what's happening around the world, such as in China, in montages and little vignettes, but for the most part the movie will focus on Yorick and his monkey, Ampersand. There's also been a major plot change from the books, inserting a "ticking clock" with Yorick and Ampersand. Caruso explains, "I separated them, and Yorick starts to get a little sick when Ampersand's not with him. I felt like we needed some kind of ticking clock so it wasn't just a boy and his monkey."

So here's what that means, for those of you who've read the comic books. First of all, we are going to lose all the interesting subplots about how the political regimes of the world reconstitute themselves in the wake of losing every single creature with a Y chromosome. We'll get very few chances to learn about the Israeli military, the Amazonian terrorists, the Japanese all-girl Yakuza, the women's prison-turned-farm-coop, and the female scientists working to make it possible to rebuild the world out of the DNA they've got left.

In other words: A comic book about a world entirely filled with women is going to turn into a movie about a dude. Of course, Yorick is the point-of-view character in the books, but his story is in some sense a frame narrative that allowed Vaughan to ask what would happen to a world that has just lost the ability to reproduce, and lost its ruling class (most of the world leaders are still men, after all). Obviously Caruso has to trim some stuff, but why add in this silly plot about how Yorick gets separated from his monkey and is getting sicker?

My biggest fear is that that means we're going to see a bunch of extra crap with the monkey running around. And we will all stab our eyes out because we'll have lost all the awesome stuff with Israeli ninja Alter and instead gained a monkey. Vaughan apparently "approved" the changes Caruso made, but it's hard to say what that means. It's not as if disapproving would really get him somewhere, and Vaughan is such a nice guy that I can't imagine him wanting to make a giant fuss over something like this ala Alan Moore.

But hey, Caruso also says that "god willing" there will be a sequel. So maybe we'll get a whole lot more monkey in 2011.

Caruso Adds "Ticking Clock" [via Cinema Blend]

Caruso spoke to SciFi Wire about the movie:

Well, I think Yorick is a fantastic role for Shia [LeBeouf]. One, because Yorick has great sort of self-deprecating humor. ... One thing Shia really brings to him is that ... realistic acting style and being put in some crazy, ... super-realistic situations. Shia always keeps them real and keeps it grounded. He's endearing. I'm hoping that the 355 relationship, ... I always thought it would be really cool to have that be sort of a [Robert] De Niro-[Charles] Grodin ... banter type relationship, like they had in Midnight Run. I think that Shia would be a great sort of receiver and giver on both sides of that. I think he'd really bring a lot to it... I haven't given deep thought [to casting other characters], because we just [finished the script]. I mean, it was so cool we finally plotted out and licked the first screenplay. I think it's one of three if, God willing, the things are successful. And so I haven't really given it much thought. But, ... it's [going to have 355]. We've got 711. We've got Dr. Mann. We've got Hero. ... We've got a lot of interesting casting choices. You know, as Shia said, this would be a really fun movie to be a guy in [laughs].

But how would the movie end?

I don't want to give away too much of the end, but I think basically you know, Yorick and 355 will basically walk away and go off into the sunset, knowing that they're going to have to keep going on the run, and you might sort of look up in the sky and realize that maybe Yorick is at that point, and he might not be the last man or he might be the last man, and that ... the journey and the continuing on the run is going to have to go from there.

He "might not be the last man"? Unless this means movie audiences are going to get an early reveal of Dr. Mann's father, then am I the only one worried that we're going to see a much more upbeat end to this version of the story that might than fans of Brian K. Vaughan's original would be expecting? If so, then suddenly Shia being the final specimen of human masculinity in the world is no longer the scariest thing we've heard about this project.

Caruso Offers New Y Hints [SciFi Wire]

Talking to /Film, Caruso said that Warner Bros, the new owners of the rights to Brian K. Vaughan's Vertigo series about the death of the male gender and what happens afterwards, is very excited about the potential of the concept:

What happened is New Line [which optioned the comic] is now part of Warner Bros, and Warner Bros is now really high on the project. And Carl Ellsworth will probably be handing in a script to Warner Bros/New Line [real soon]... Warner Bros keeps saying ‘We need movies for 2010′ I’m like ‘We’re the movie!’

And, as we've reported before, Shia LeBeouf is still on track to play sole male survivor Yorick Brown:

I was talking to Shia [LaBeouf] about this yesterday when we were looping him, because he really wants to do it as well, I would like to prep this movie in October, and start shooting it by January... [Shia] wants to do it, I want to do it. I think we just need to worry about him being exhausted, so I told him, if I prep it in the fall and we start in January, that’s a nice big break.

As much as I may not be convinced by Shia in general, I have to admit that I think that he might work in the role, and find myself hoping that this project doesn't disappear into development hell as soon as we get our first adapted-from-a-comic bomb.

DJ Caruso’s Y: The Last Man in Summer 2010? [/Film]

The heartening news we should probably take away from this is that the director wants to turn it into a trilogy after centering the first movie on the first 12 issues of the series:

I see it as a trilogy because there is so much to put in. Where the first movie ends doesn't even relate to the last issue because it's so far down the road. It hasn't succeeded so far in the screenplay format because everyone keeps trying to throw everything in there. We're only taking this [first] story so far.

I just watched Disturbia for the first time this weekend, and I will grudgingly admit that Shia isn't bad in it. However, the ending of that movie was so sickeningly cotton-candy sweet after featuring actors swimming in sewage pools full of rotting corpses, that our main worry is that D.J. Caruso will completely miss the mark on Y. What do you think?

D.J. Caruso Says Shia's Still His 'Last Man' For 'Y' [MTV Movies Blog]