Seth MacFarlane to Adapt Dungeon Crawler Carl for Peacock

Dungeon Crawler Carl began as a free Royal Road serial in 2020 before Matt Dinniman self-published it on Amazon; Ace Books bought the print rights in 2024. The story — an alien corporation strips Earth for parts and survivors are forced into a sadistic intergalactic game show, with Coast Guard veteran Carl and a talking show cat, Princess Donut, crawling deadly dungeon levels — has since sold more than 6 million copies and been a persistent presence on BookTok.

Peacock has given a straight-to-series order for a live-action adaptation of Dinniman’s science-fantasy saga. The project comes from Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door and is based at Universal Global Television. Chris Yost, who co-wrote Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: The Dark World and ran the writers’ room on Marvel’s animated series The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, is adapting the books and will executive-produce.

seth macfarlane, dungeon crawler, carl, princess donut, peacock, fuzzy door, universal, chris yost, matt dinniman, ace books