The Y The Last Man movie adaptation is officially dead, once again. Almost-director Dan Trachtenberg was asked about the project on Twitter and said the following: “Not happening. But it’s in trusted hands (the creators).” Most people figured as much, considering Tranchtenberg is currently prepping his Bad Robot film Valencia, but this was the first public confirmation of Y‘s current status.

We took the opportunity to ask Trachtenberg about the project and, to our surprise, he was kind enough to oblige. He explained that his Y: The Last Man was based on the first two trades in Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra‘s amazing series, with some characters deleted and action scenes expanded. He talked about what films he looked to for inspiration and which were referenced in the script. And then confirmed the rights reverted back to Vaughan sometime ago and that the project’s future is totally up in the air.

Read more about the fate of the Y The Last Man movie below.

Here’s what Trachtenberg told us about the Y The Last Man movie:

The rights reverted back to Brian quite a few months ago.

I had such a great time working on that project and am truly sad the things we were cooking up can no longer happen.

Like everyone else who’s a fan of the series I had always wished it either remain in its comic book form. Or, if it must be made, a TV series would be the only thing that would suffice.

However, the “big screen” and the “small screen” has changed drastically since Y came out and I think so much of the great TV in our current “golden age” has been directly or indirectly inspired by Y the Last Man. I started getting excited about bringing to the BIG screen what we’ve been getting in TV so readily now— great characters, RELATIONSHIPS, world building and genre re-combination.

Truly- I was excited to make an ADVENTURE movie, with swashbuckle, that was fun and funny but had something to say. Which is something that is distinctly BKV. Having real, true, honest ,people stuff amidst the big, fun, action stuff. We were in many ways quite faithful to the comic, though some characters were combined and some events re-arranged and some brief moments of action we dug into to create bigger action/adventure sequences.

The script was essentially the first two trades. Taking inspiration from the original Star Wars (Episode 4)- we wanted to tell a complete story…but not the whole story. Hoping that, in success, we could get tell the rest of our serialized adventure.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was referenced a lot. Midnight Run and Big Trouble in Little China were referenced a lot. Willow and Ladyhawke I may have referenced a little too often…

In the end, working with all the producers and the writers was a great experience. And getting to meet Brian, who has been such an inspiration to me over the years was incredible. He’s as great a person as he is a writer. And now Y the Last Man is back where it should be, with its creator.

I’m not sure Brian will ever want to do anything more with it and I’m not sure that he needs to. His latest comics SAGA and THE PRIVATE EYE are great and we should be reading them. His “never-been-made” screenplays are some of my favorite reads ever (Roundtable, specifically). I hope we can convince him to write us some more awesome original movies and TV— but I think comics is where his heart lies.

Alas…we will always have that thing we fell in love with— that’s not going anywhere…

The one thing Trachtenberg didn’t say specifically is why this movie didn’t happen. When asked, he wouldn’t say, but did suggest the normal reasons for something like this – script problems, budget issues, casting – were not the main culprits.

As a fellow fan of Y: The Last Man, I definitely echo Trachtenberg’s sentiments here. Even with all the luck and talent in the world, Y: The Last Man is simply a story that’s too big for the big screen. The creators having the rights back is for the best. Maybe they’ll figure something out in the future. Maybe the Preacher AMC adaptation will get some other networks excited about adapting the property for TV. For now though, despite some really valiant efforts, the Y The Last Man movie is once again dead.