It’s one of Hollywood’s most persistent rumors: that a big-screen version of Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s new classic comics series Y: The Last Man is bound for the big screen, that it has to happen, that it’s going to happen. Buzz on such an adaptation is now edging up against the decade-old mark, as New Line Cinema picked up the rights to the series back in the early part of 2006—before the series, about the literal last man on earth, his monkey, and their heart-pounding adventures, had even wrapped up—but a film still has not been made. And now it looks like it won’t be made at all.

Over the years, the project has cycled through a number of possible incarnations, including a D.J. Caruso-directed and Shia LaBeouf-starring feature, and a Louis Leterrier-helmed version, although both eventually stalled out for various reasons. (For a while, there even seemed to be the possibility that the comic series would be turned into an entire trilogy of movies.) By 2013, it seemed as if the project was back on its feet, thanks to the addition of rising director Dan Trachtenberg, a fan of the series who appeared to bring the necessary passion and drive to the plagued project.

But now Trachtenberg himself shares that Y: The Last Man is dead—again—and he won’t be the one to resurrect it.

— Dan Trachtenberg (@DannyTRS) September 25, 2014

Trachtenberg was recently asked on his Twitter about the film’s status, and he responded: “Not happening. But it’s in trusted hands (the creators).” As /Film notes, this wasn’t exactly shocking news, as Trachtenberg is busy working on his Valencia, and there have been plenty of rumors that the series’ rights were set to revert back to Vaughn if New Line failed to go into production. The outlet asked Trachtenberg to elaborate on what happened, and the filmmaker obliged.

He shared: “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.”

Trachtenberg’s vision was to tell a faithful story in an economic way, in hopes that it would lead to an entire series of films, and the filmmaker explains: “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 [to] tell the rest of our serialized adventure.”

Trachtenberg concedes: “I’m not sure Brian will ever want to do anything more with it and I’m not sure that he needs to…Alas…we will always have that thing we fell in love with— that’s not going anywhere.”

Back to the comic books, guys.