Y: The Last Man is about to be butchered
JohnTilton
Posts: 113
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/y-the-last-man-stephen-scaia-matthew-federman-brian-k-vaughan-300211?_r=true
From what I can find, they want to do one movie that encompasses the entire story... how do they think that is remotely possible? if I'm wrong, please someone correct me. This is probably my favorite series of all time, I just want to make sure it gets treated fairly.
From what I can find, they want to do one movie that encompasses the entire story... how do they think that is remotely possible? if I'm wrong, please someone correct me. This is probably my favorite series of all time, I just want to make sure it gets treated fairly.
Comments
Too bad what is probably the best idea of his life was done at Vertigo. He won a lot with that, but appears to be losing control of it after the fact.
Or he sold the rights too early.
(This, of course, excepts properties that are now Vertigo books that WB owns outright, like John Constantine or Swamp Thing. I would imagine the process of trying to get those to be movies is no different than the path for other WB properties like Superman or Batman)
Seems like they're going a bit in that direction with True Blood and Game of Thrones so fingers crossed
Vertigo and Image contracts are definitely different. Vertigo seems to be a hybrid between a standard Big Two contract and an Image contract.
I'm sure I've got some of the details off, since I've never read either agreement, but it is definitely not safe to assume that BKV fully owns or has control of Y in other media.
But even if Vertigo may have a contractual connection to, say, the future reprints or future volumes of print books for a property done with them (I would guess it is at least a right of first refusal), they still don't actually own something like Y:TLM, DMZ, or Preacher. Even the indicia makes that clear. I think they own that work in the same way that, say, George RR Martin owns his novels (though, as with Vertigo, I would imagine the contract Martin has with his publishers would also give them the right of first refusal before he takes those novels to another publisher).
So therefore I'm not sure where the line gets drawn in regard to control of the IP as IP, though. I would imagine that the contract is such that Vertigo gets a piece of an IP deal, like a movie or TV show, but I am not sure whether they get a say on what happens to one of the creator-owned properties, or whether anything happens at all. It may be that- as with the prose book world- the author/owners are still in control of that decision.
So, again, apropos to the topic at hand and whether there is a "Vertigo model", it may be that Vaughan and Guerra are absolutely getting to make the decisions as far as who they will or won't option the rights to their work to, just as much as they would if they were at Image, but the difference might be that they end up splitting the gains from those media sales (as well as a bigger chunk of the reprint revenues) with Vertigo in ways that they wouldn't have to at Image. And, given the presence that Image already had in the direct market, and now has in the book market thanks to the monster success of Walking Dead, I can certainly see why BKV and Staples may have seen less reason to need to be in business with a Vertigo in favor of doing Saga at Image. Ditto for Brubaker and Philips choosing to do Fatale at Image rather than Icon. For whatever promotional advantage doing creator-owned works at the Big 2 might get you, there is certainly money you end up having to leave on their table for it.
That would at least be my guess. To be clear, though, I do think that the creator-owned works at Vertigo are creator-owned works. There is even precedent of author/owners being able to reprint works with other publishers when Vertigo didn't want to (like Delano and Sudzuka's Outlaw Nation, which got reprinted in one phone book volume at Image). So even if Vertigo has a stake, or a right of first refusal, I wouldn't call that ownership.
But that is only my understanding, which might be wrong. Did Wood say something differently at that panel?
And I don't know that it is that simple. And it may also be the case that we want a different thing than even the authors of the comic do-- when I have heard Vaughan talk about the premise of Y- and I believe this was at the point where it as already in development, and he had already written the first draft of what would be the first movie of a three movie series, I think that was the initial development sale- his very practiced, single-sentence pitch for what the whole thing was about is "The story of the last boy on Earth becoming the last man on Earth." Now, that is a great pitch. And clearly, having gone through the development and pitching process, he had got good at having to reduce and describe the whole thing in that concise way.
Another thing to remember about Y- Vaughan often said that from the very beginning of the series, he wasn't sure of everything that was going to happen, but he always knew how it would end. What the very last panel would be.
But here's the thing- maybe he and Guerra actually believe that story could be better told in three films than as a TV series of an indeterminate length? And I don't disagree with him.
Now, I love good TV. I would say I get more excited about those rare shows, the really, really great TV series, then I do about movies. (And my wife works in TV, so I probably talk about TV more often than I get to actually watch it these days.) And as much as I love great TV, I am not so sure that Y would be better as a TV series, especially given the realities of how TV tends to actually get made, and what things get chosen to be TV series.
The reason I say that is that I think there is a big difference between Y and longer or more open-ended journeys like the Walking Dead. Walking Dead, by the very premise of the comic is about the long term. It is about surviving and CONTINUING to survive and move on, and I believe the comic has only got more interesting the longer it has gone on, because the very endurance of the surviving characters, and the amount of wounds and baggage they carry, is what sets it apart from so much of the rest of survival genre fiction.
By contrast, I think Y is moves towards a very specific goal. And I think it is at its strongest for the fact that it was only those 60 (60? Something like that) issues. (In fact, love it as I do, I think it would have been even stronger at 50 issues, even though I did love some of the strange interludes, but I digress). There is only so long that I think we can put up with Yorick being a boy before he becomes a man. I think there is only so long we can take to get him to that very specific place he is going before we would just lose patience with him, or interest in him. And once he gets there, and once he has become a man, it really is time to end that story.
I actually think you could structure that across three films more effectively than a TV series. The way that TV gets made- with the exception of the rare, planned mini-series with a set end point- is that once it starts, how long it goes, as well as a lot of the direction of where it goes is based on how it does, and what it is that the people behind it, as well as the viewers, respond to. They would have to start out not knowing how long they have to finish their story, and the price of success is that they may find themselves (as Lost and BSG did) with more time to kill then they expected.
Because the people funding a TV series want a hit that can become a brand that goes and goes. And a show like Y would not only be really expensive to make (it is, by its nature, the anti-bottle show. The story tends to never settle in an area, so there are no locations or sets you get to keep using over and over again. And if you are true to the story, you even have to keep moving to different climates and parts of the world, so you don't get to do what Walking Dead does: set up shop in one state (Georgia), get a sweetheart tax break deal, make use of the existing strong local production community, and end up adding to it, and continue to try to have most of your locations in that state. (Which is probably pretty doable, as the geographic area of Walking Dead in the comics doesn't change that much). Other shows do the same, such as period piece that has a soundstage in Toronto, and can make use of various rural locations in the Province that can pass for parts of the US. Or SF shows that do so much on soundstages, etc.
To do a Y as a series would be a budget nightmare. And, sadly, you can already hear the complaints of network execs-- even the really excellent ones at a place like HBO-- questioning whether their network, which aims so much of their dramatic programming at a male audience, could get that demographic to watch a show that has only one male character. Think about it, outside of female-targeted shows like Sex and the City, and a small handful of other female-led series, how many TV shows, even cable ones, can you think of with only one male character? And I think that challenge, of having only the one male point of view for male audience members, is actually a larger challenge to a TV series than a movie. Because, at least it is believed, that watching, and CONTINUING to watch a TV series has a lot more to do with relating to the characters. And with only the one male character on offer, I think that those who make TV might question the gamble of a Y:TLM. Would Yorick, especially at the beginning of his journey, be a character engaging enough for all the males in the audience to connect to? Because if you don't connect to him, it is not like there is the other guy. In other shows, you can dislike Jack but dig Sawyer. You can be left cold by Bullock but love Swearengen. Y doesn't give you the same options when it comes to the male characters. And I am not saying that that sort of TV thinking is right, and TV should take more seriously the opportunities for female characters, and a wide cast of them, that Y would bring... but unfortunately that is just not the TV industry we have right now.
Sorry... I totally TV Nerd-ed out on this for a lot longer than I meant to. Anyway, LONG point short, I see it said all the time that Y should be an HBO series like it is as simple as a fact. And I get that. And, of course, I would tune in and love our HBO subscription even more if it was one. But I don't know that it is certain it would actually work that way. Or that it would not work better as a series of films. I think it might. Hopefully we'll get to find out.
I have only seen the first season of Walking Dead so far, but they did get to settle in some locations, like the encampment, for multiple episodes. And usually the characters are in one, and I think in the first season at the most two, palces. Part of the scope of Walking Dead-- which is to say only focusing on the limited experience of one group of survivors-- keeps it cheap. A small group of people, and a lot of scenes with just them in the woods. Or them and some empty cars around them. And empty is cheap.
Y takes a more macro view of the world, as we have Yorick's journey, sure, but also scenes from the point of view of the remaining US and Israeli governments, as well as other characters around the world. Unlike the Walking Dead POV, which is to wonder what the rest of the world is like, and to be isolated from it. Y sets out from the very beginning to show that what has happened has affected the entire world, and the characters know it.
To make it seem like Yorick is making progress across the globe, then in most episodes he would have to always seem to be in a new place. Eventually in new countries. And if you are keeping at all close to the books, you need to people and design these locations to show that they are now half-peopled, to show the world has changed. You need those biker gangs, and tribes, and other locations and things I won't mention to avoid spoilers. But lots of locations, and lots of people (and only women) to show the change in the world. And that costs.
Heck, even Ampersand costs. Depending on how many scenes he is in, you probably need several monkeys, trained to do different sorts of things, and you know the old adage about working with children and animals.
I'm not saying it is impossible, but from what I know of making things, and watching things get made, I would guess that there are a lot of things that would make it more expensive than most shows that come to mind, including Mad Men and Walking Dead.
This is a digression, but Walking Dead is actually a sort of ingeniously inexpensive show, when you think of it-- putting zombie makeup on extras and a few featured stunt performers is cheap. Having empty locations, particularly in a state that is friendly to your production and known to be less expensive to shoot in than places like New York, also helps. And as the zombies were the selling point rather than any known-names in the ensemble cast, then I would imagine the talent costs were kept low. Heck, they even got rid of the writing staff (which is to say, the "writer's room" of producers that show up every day to work on writing) in favor of buying freelance scripts. And, as far as I know, they are continuing to draw an audience. So that is an example of a particularly low budget approach to success.
Maybe a smarter producer than me could find a way to do Y on the cheap... but I would worry that it would look cheap. Heck. the worst looking stuff in Lost, in my opinion, was when they attempted to make parts of Hawaii look like other parts of the world. There is only so much you can do with filters. Usually, if you want to make it seem like a journey around the world, you have to have your production travel around the world. And from what I know, that gets HUGELY expensive. Especially for a scripted show (meaning, as opposed to an unscripted show, like a travel show, that just has a host or two and a lightweight crew of a couple pros, maybe augmented by a few local fixers).
The cast is relatively small.
My point is that we don't know the circumstances of the option and how it works.
Why are you defending the movie so vociferously? Do you really think it's a better choice.
I didn't watch Friends, so I had to Google Marcel to know who that ways. But given that it was an ensemble show, I would guess that a monkey character on Friends ends up in a lot less scenes than one who is supposed to always be with the lead character in show that mostly follows that character.
As for whether it is really a better choice? To be honest, I don't know what would work better. It is all hypothetical at this point. But if the plan is to attempt a series of movies- and from what I know that was Vaughan and Guerra's plan- then I trust it. I figure they know the work better than I do. I guess my point is that I am not so quick to say that the people choosing to go the movie route rather than the TV route are foolish, as I think the TV route is more complicated than it may seem.
But, it is hard to predict. Hopefully we'll get the chance to see. At the end of the day, though, as much as I get intrigued by adaptations, and as nice as the new readership they can bring to a work can be, the most important thing was the work itself. Which is completed and on the shelf. And which is not going to be butchered no matter what.
I can't find a defense for either a movie of a TV series, personally. Y was a great series, and it's done. Watchmen: The Movie and Walking (or rather Sleeping) Dead have really crystallized my feeling on adaptations. Nothing adapted is ever as good as something original. Creative people should spend their time creating something new. Hypocritical, for a guy that buys a ton of superhero comics, but I'm just so bored of adaptations.
Granted, most adaptations of beloved stories are disappointing, but there have been many great ones.
Off the top of my head:
The Princess Bride
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Rocketeer
M*A*S*H
The Godfather
The Maltese Falcon
@Trev I agree with you as well, it's easy to get caught up in trying to compare the material, and I generally try to avoid that. It's sometimes hard not to have some expectation about how it's going to be. I think that's exactly where I have a problem with Watchmen, the movie. It makes terrible use of the medium of film, and in trying to be so slavishly faithful to the source material does that material a disservice as well because being on the page is a big part of what made it work in the first place.
Can't make pun about Absolute Editions work...
Frustration!
Much like comics, movies are in a really strange transitional state due to shifts in technology that the people in charge just don't really understand. As soon as the generation of kids that grew up with all these tools gets to be in charge, I think there will be an explosion of creativity and innovation.
*thinks*
Wait a minute...