Making any kind of entertainment has become increasingly difficult in the middle of a pandemic, with case counts rising all over the United States and many worrying that we could be in for a very long and painful winter. But somehow, despite every obstacle that exists in our current world, 2020 will officially be the year when the FX television adaptation of Y: The Last Man finally started filming.
Variety reported on Thursday that the oft-delayed adaptation of the Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra comic book is finally in production in Toronto, amid a pandemic and some changes to both the folks on and off screen for the show. Y: The Last Man, which chronicles a world where every living thing on Earth with a Y chromosome — except a single CIS male and his pet monkey — mysteriously die, has seen a number of setbacks and changes since it was first reported in production at FX in 2015. It also saw various delays in it actually making it to production, including the aforementioned pandemic that’s still happening in real life.
Originally picked up to series last year, production on “Y: The Last Man” was set to start in March, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the latest bump in the road for “Y: The Last Man,” which first began development in 2015. After being picked up to pilot in 2018, Michael Green and Aida Mashaka Croal were named co-showrunners, but later left.
A pilot was ordered in 2018, and a movie version of the series was scuttled before that. But production didn’t officially start until this week, albeit with some casting changes. While Diane Lane reportedly remains involved in the show, a series regular will not take part and Olivia Thirlby will reportedly replace Imogen Poots a main character, Hero Brown.
Timothy Hutton is no longer a part of the cast on FX’s long-gestating “Y: The Last Man,” the network confirmed on Wednesday.
Hutton’s exit comes as several cast members have been swapped now that the show is entering production. Olivia Thirlby has replaced Imogen Poots as Hero Brown, while Ashley Romans takes over the role of Agent 355 from Lashana Lynch.
As Variety notes, the exit of Hutton comes after some disturbing allegations against the actor that came to light earlier in the year. A BuzzFeed report revealed a criminal complaint against Hutton in Vancouver where a woman claimed she was raped and assaulted by Hutton and another person in 1983. It’s unclear whether that factored into the decision to drop Hutton, who was apparently supposed to play the president, but Hutton’s departure is one of a number of changes to the originally-announced cast of what’s still a very intriguing show we may now someday actually get to see on TV.