After fourteen years of attempts to adapt Brian K. Vaughan’s acclaimed “Y: The Last Man” comic for the screen, things finally came to fruition this year with the TV show launching a month ago and running… for all of a few weeks.
FX on Hulu abruptly canceled the post-apocalyptic drama on Sunday after having aired only seven of its planned ten episodes so far. To say the cancellation was a surprise is an understatement, and it turns out the reasoning isn’t merely a case of poor viewership.
A new feature piece in THR has gone into the show’s abrupt demise, saying a combination of costs and COVID are what essentially brought it down.
The series had it rough from the beginning. FX scored the rights in 2015, picked up the pilot in 2018 and cast Barry Keoghan and Diane Lane in leading roles with a series order in early 2019.
Then came the disruptions. The original showrunners Michael Green and Aida Croal exited citing creative differences. Then current showrunner Eliza Clark came onboard in mid-2019 to get things moving again.
Unfortunately more delays ensued as Keoghan, who was to play Yorick, was recast with Ben Schnetzer taking over the role. Within a few days, the COVID-19 pandemic then delayed everything and the show was moved from a planned FX launch to the FX on Hulu hub.
So, filming didn’t ultimately begin until October 2020, meaning some of the original cast like Lashana Lynch and Imogen Poots exited. So, because of all the delays the network had to extend the options of the cast – a costly bill even with the episodes coming in under their allotted $8.5 million-per-episode budget.
That’s where things took a turn this month. Clark pitched a potential second season in late September by which time four episodes had aired and the show’s soft reviews were in.
Executives at FX had to make a decision on the future of the series by October 15th when those options on the cast expired and would require a further $3 million to extend – while also potentially leaving the cast in limbo again.
Thus came the cancellation news which the trade’s sources say was not based on viewership figures as FX had little to no data on which to evaluate the series. Their sources added that: “without COVID, the show would have been on a different clock.”
So now comes the question as to whether producers Clark and Nina Jacobson can find a new home for their series. FX Productions owns the series outright and said to be supportive of plans to shop the show. HBO Max is considered a likely target home as WarnerMedia owns the Vertigo Comics label which published the original comic.