The live-action “Dungeon Crawler Carl” TV series, based on the LitRPG book series by Matt Dinniman, is now officially in development at Peacock. The project was originally optioned by Universal International Studios in early 2025. It’s taken this long to find a distributor for the series, and the clock had nearly run out on the option contract, to be rescued from oblivion in the nick of time.
Chris Yost will write and executive produce the series, with Seth MacFarlane set to executive produce under his Fuzzy Door banner. Dinniman is also an EP, as is Fuzzy Door’s Erica Huggins. Rachel Hargreaves-Heald will serve as executive in charge of production for Fuzzy Door.
The official logline for the show states:
“An alien invasion has wiped out most of humanity and any survivors are forced to fight for their lives on a sadistic intergalactic game show. Sounds bad, right? Now try doing it with bare feet and a stuck-up, self-centered, tiara-wearing talking cat as your partner. Welcome to Dungeon Crawler World: Earth, where the apocalypse will be televised … and Coast Guard vet Carl finds himself stuck with his ex-girlfriend’s award-winning show cat, Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk, as they try to survive the end of the world, fighting monsters, aliens, an insane A.I. and even other survivors … all for the sake of good TV. Survival is optional. Entertainment is not.”
There have been seven entries in the Dungeon Crawler Carl book series to date, with the eighth set to be released on May 12. Dinnman has indicated that there will be 10 books overall in the series by the time he’s done with it. Unlike a certain other fantasy writer, it looks like Dinniman is on tract to finish his grand story arc.
Doing a series of this scope will be technically and creatively challenging, given the nature of the books, but Dinnman has expressed confidence MacFarlane’s ability to bring the books to life.
“[We’re] not going to do it if it’s gonna look like absolute shit,” he said. “And they will do CGI testing on Princess Donut and stuff like that. And that’s all I can say, I think. It’s all gonna hinge on what it looks like. But Fuzzy Door, specifically, if you watch ‘Ted’ or ‘The Orville,’ you’ll see that they know what they’re doing when it comes to this.”
A start date for the series is obviously at least a year and a half away, and probably longer than that. This stuff takes some serious production time.
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I’ve been listening to the first book. It’s bonkers. It’s gory. It’s hilarious.