The writing might have been on the wall for quite some time, but nobody would’ve expected Y: The Last Man to be cancelled as abruptly as it was. Days after the show was axed by FX even before completing its first season, a new THR report unpacked what went wrong.
Based on Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s hit comic book series, it could be argued that Y: The Last Man has always been a cursed property. Not only did a film adaptation fall apart in the mid-2000s, the show that eventually made it to the air was recast and reshot after having been green-lit. Not to mention the creative differences that forced original showrunners Michael Green and Aida Croal to part ways after having worked on it for years.
While Green and Croal’s version of the show would’ve tackled toxic masculinity, new showrunner Eliza Clark’s take on the material focused on gender identity. THR reports that the primary reason behind the series' cancellation was the network brass' hesitation in keeping the cast, some of whom were hired in 2018, in (costly) limbo as they deliberated over the show's future. Executives had to make a decision about the series by October 15, which is when the options on the cast expired.
FX landed the rights in 2015, picked the show up to pilot in 2018, cast Barry Keoghan in the lead role three months later and ordered Y: The Last Man to series in 2019. Green, who was hired in 2016, left the project along with Croal in April 2019. Clark was hired as their replacement two months later, but in early 2020, Keoghan dropped out. Ben Schnetzer was brought on board that same month, but then the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Talk about bad luck.
By the time production eventually began in October 2020, other cast members such as Lashana Lynch and Imogen Poots had also been replaced, and it was decided to forgo a traditional release on FX and embrace a streaming model on Disney-owned Hulu.
Because of these delays, the network had to extend options on the cast, and despite the show coming in under-budget ($8.5 million per episode), the costs added up. Clark pitched a second season in September, after the show had opened to middling reviews and had aired four of its 10 episodes. Ultimately, THR reported, the execs declined to pay the $3 million it would have cost to extend the options. The cancellation was not based on viewership, which the report cited sources as saying had witnessed a typical mid-season drop-off.
Clark in her statement after Sunday’s cancellation said that they were hoping to find a new home for the show. THR says that the likeliest candidate to take over is HBO Max, whose parent company WarnerMedia owns DC Comics, whose imprint Vertigo published the original comics.
Thanking the cast and crew, Clark wrote that working on the show was “the most collaborative, creatively fulfilling, and beautiful thing (she has) ever been a part of,” and that they “don’t want it to end.”