Dungeon Crawler Carl, the literary RPG novel series written by Matt Dinniman, has received a straight-to-series order from Peacock, according to Variety. That means the network will jump straight into production on the first season of the show without ordering a pilot first.
In April, Variety reported that Dungeon Crawler Carl had landed at Peacock. Now, the network is officially moving forward with it. The show has been in development since 2024, with Chris Yost (Thor: Ragnarok, The Mandalorian) writing and executive producing the series. Dinniman and Seth MacFarlane are also executive producers, and MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door produces the show.
Dinniman announced the pickup on Instagram, writing, “Surprise! I’m happy to announce that our friends at Peacock have *officially* greenlit the Dungeon Crawler Carl television series! Me, Chris Yost and Seth MacFarlane and his team at Fuzzy Door are all really excited to get to work. In the coming weeks I’ll have more details, and if you’re going to SDCC be sure to catch me and Chris on our DCC panel. In the meantime I wanted to thank you, the fans, for helping make this happen.”
The post included a graphic written in Dinniman’s signature cheeky style. The eighth and most recent book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, A Parade of Horribles, was released last month, on May 12, 2026. Dinniman began self-publishing the series on Amazon in 2020, and it was a near-instant success. The series as a whole has sold over 10 million copies, with two more books planned.
The TV series’ official description 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.”
The show has its work cut out for it trying to condense Dinniman’s sprawling world into just a few hours of TV. At one point, as Dinniman told Audible, he had a 198-page spreadsheet, plus a secondary directory spreadsheet to find things in the original one, to keep track of all the characters, abilities, and loot in his story.
While the TV show will likely only tackle small chunks of the books at one time, there’s still a lot of material that’s going to be cut simply out of necessity. Hopefully, Yost, MacFarlane, and Dinniman can manage to keep the spirit of Dungeon Crawler Carl intact while streamlining the series for the small screen.
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