Hollywood tried very hard to make Brian K. Vaughan’s classic comic Y :The Last Man into a movie but, finally, everyone gave up. The story was just too epic and too risky to condense into that form. TV has always been the right medium and now that’s happening thanks to a very passionate fan.


That person is Nina Jacobson, one of the producers who wooed Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra into letting her company produce Y: The Last Man as an FX series. Last weekend, we spoke with Jacobson about her small new movie, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, and found out how she got the job as producer on Y.

The fact that I was a girl. That was a plus. To know that a woman would oversee it and therefore some of the pitfalls that could happen as you make a story in a world populated by women, you want to have some female subjectivity at the table. Also just how BADLY I wanted it. I wanted it so badly. I mean, I didn’t NAME my dog “Hero” JUST to get it, but I love it so much, I named my dog Hero.


Yes, Jacobson is such a fan, her dog is named after the main character’s sister from the comics. But her gender and pet were secondary to the fact Jacobson’s company, Color Force, has a reputation for being very respectful and open to author collaboration. They worked very closely with Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins in adapting those books and she felt that was big deal for Vaughan:

We really do care what the author thinks. You don’t love something without the person who created it having gotten some huge things right. And if you don’t get them right, you’re lost. It’s not an accident when they get that right. It’s a series of hard creative decisions that they made that you now have the benefit of inheriting, unless you’re an idiot and you don’t want the benefit of inheriting those things.

Oh, and the fact her company already has a first look deal in place with FX didn’t hurt. “I thought they were the perfect place for it because it’s a network and studio, all under one roof,” she said. “They are so serious about making it. So I just chased and chased and chased, in a way I did with The Hunger Games.”

So what’s the status of the project? Jacobson is currently meeting with writers and because there are so many Y fans out there, she said it’s been some of the most fun she’s ever had in Hollywood.

So many people feel the way about it that I do. Some people you’re introducing it to, writers on your wish list. Some people are chasing you and you have to fend them off with a stick. So it’s a blast. It’s actually some of the most fun [I’ve ever had.] it’s rare to have an assignment where people are so hot and frothing about it.


Glad to know we’re not the only ones “hot and frothing” about the project finally happening the way it should.

Contact the author at germain@io9.com .