The live-action adaptation of Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series is officially in development at Peacock, according to a report from Variety. The project was first picked up by Universal International Studio back in 2025 without any sort of streaming service attached.
The last we heard about the series was from an interview with Dinniman in March where he said the series was “still very much alive” despite no formal announcements about its status. The news that Peacock is officially developing the series is the first confirmation we’ve gotten that the project will actually be moving forward.
The plot of the series is based on the massively popular LitRPG book series of the same name, which follows a guy named Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s talking cat as Earth gets sucked into a twisted intergalactic gameshow. Here’s the official logline for the show:
“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.”
The news that the series will be landing on Peacock isn’t too surprising given that Seth McFarlane’s Fuzzy Door Studios is attached to the project. McFarlane’s popular Ted TV series is currently streaming exclusively on the platform, after all. What has been a surprise for some fans is the choice to make the series live action. Dinniman previously defended that decision, pointing out the studio’ record: “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. So I would say, don’t knock it till you try it.”
While we don’t yet have a release window for the series, there are currently seven Dungeon Crawler Carl books you can check out while we wait. The eighth book in the series, titled A Parade of Horribles, is set to be released next month (May 12) alongside the first graphic novel adaptation of the story.
A Parade of Horribles (Dungeon Crawler Carl)
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Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and 10 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics — from TV series to books and the latest Pokémon games.
