Hold onto your loot and get ready to scream "Carl!" because Dungeon Crawler Carl is heading to the small screen.
News that Matt Dinniman's wildly popular book series was in line to be getting a TV series adaption dates all the way back to August 2024. In early 2025, Universal International Studios picked up the project, but there was no network or streamer attached at the time.
Now Variety has confirmed that the highly anticipated TV series adaptation is officially in development at Peacock.
Chris Yost remains on board as writer and executive producer, with Seth MacFarlane also executive producing through his Fuzzy Door banner. Matt Dinniman is as an executive producer as well, alongside Fuzzy Door’s Erica Huggins. Rachel Hargreaves-Heald will serve as executive in charge of production for Fuzzy Door.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is a LitRPG (literary role-playing game), blending sci-fi storytelling with video game mechanics. The series blends RPG elements like levels, loot, and stats, with reality TV satire in dark comedy survival story. The series logline reads:
“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.”
Dungeon Crawler Carl is one of the most popular entries in the LitRPG genre right now. There are currently seven books in the series with an eighth book, A Parade of Horribles, scheduled to release on May 12. Dinniman has confirmed that the story will end with a ninth book that will likely be split into two volumes.
Despite fan concerns that the series’ sci-fi fantasy elements might be better suited for animation than live action, Matt Dinniman said he’s confident Seth MacFarlane can successfully bring the books to life.
“[We’re] not going to do it if it’s gonna look like absolute sh*t,” 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.”
Are you looking forward to the TV adaptation of Dungeon Crawler Carl?