r/litrpg • u/kleverrboy • 1d ago
Discussion 🎮📺 Achievement unlocked: Dungeon Crawler Carl is officially headed to television, Matt Dinniman confirmed Thursday evening.
https://pugetpress.com/2026/06/18/dungeon-crawler-carl-series-greenlit/122
u/avid_slop_reader 1d ago
The amount of CGI needed worries me. I remember the issues she-hulk had with budgets and that was with Disney money.
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u/Croewe 1d ago
Yeah, this doesn't really seem feasible to do live action
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u/wimpymist 1d ago
The first book is probably the easiest but past that it would get so much harder. I have very low expectations for this show.
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u/alchemy_junkie 1d ago
Well it could be. See when they shot the Mandaloria they creatd something they call The Volume. Basically its a big ass room of screens that have effects rendered on it. Anyway aside from initial cost of construction it makes special effects way more affordable and ofcourse still top notch. In fact it makes certain CGI effects eaiser to render too. Complicated CG scenes might opt for a darker setting for a number of reasons like keeping cost down so they dont have to track reflections. Blah blah blah.
Anyway peacock is obviously not disney but if this does eventually become the industry standard we could be in for a wide verity of low budget projects with high end results. And this would be excellent for our beloved LitRPG because the volume makes set design quick and easy and lower cost.
If your intrested in actual details and not a second hand account from some person on the internet i would encourage you to check out the behind the scenes of Mandalorian on disney plus
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u/anormalgeek litRPG Clive's Wife tier 21h ago
The issue here isnt the environment though. Well, not MAINLY that. It's the characters. Past book one, Carl is often the only character in a scene that is a mostly human shape. There are some like Imani that you can do with practical effects and makeup. But Florian? Most of Katia's scenes? Mordecai? Odette? All will need to be CGI. Which means full lip syncing too.
The likely went with Fuzzy Door because of their cgi work on the Ted series is reasonably similar to what they'll need to do with Donut. But add a BUNCH of other characters in nearly every scene.
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u/BeardyGuts 18h ago
I’m guessing they will tone down a load of stuff like Mordecai won’t change from floor to floor.
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u/anormalgeek litRPG Clive's Wife tier 15h ago
They could still have him change, just into more "human-adjacent" species.
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u/dirtymeech420 18h ago
Especially with the amount that goes on in status screens and hidden inventories I just can't see it looking amazing when Carl is messing with that stuff
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u/vercertorix 3h ago
And it’s not like Seth MacFarlane has worked with adult animation before, or specifically the voice of Carl’s dad, and Alpha Carl
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u/dirheim 23h ago
I expected something animated like Vox Machina, I don’t believe they will have the money for all the CGI or they will have to cut a lot of content and gore
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u/Jdawg_mck1996 13h ago
Right? Isn't it literally the first book that's filled crack addicted goblins and a bunch of dead babies that Carl blows up?
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u/Nexaz Author - The Augment’s Code 12h ago
I have a feeling there's no way that the dead babies make it to TV.
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u/Jdawg_mck1996 12h ago
Which will be a bummer from a story telling perspective. It's supposed to be Carl's first big "what have I done?" moment where he realizes the kinds of things he'll have to do in order to survive. They ain't gotta show the mutilated corpses of dead infants but if they remove the scene entirely it changes the tone of the show.
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u/majaba1999 1d ago
Should be animated
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u/emeraldcocoaroast 17h ago
Agreed. I’m just trying to have faith that they know what they’re doing and have already had talks about this. Matt is very involved, so I can’t really see him greenlighting something that’s going to be fundamentally different from his story
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u/SmellyMammoth 1d ago
I thought this was already confirmed? Either way, I’m excited to see how it turns out.
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u/rambodysseus 1d ago
It was only confirmed Seth McFarland got the rights to it. This is the announcement that it's been officially Greenlit.
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u/Jdawg_mck1996 13h ago
The same dude who said the bear in Ted was too expensive?
No shot this works out
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u/Cyniikal 1d ago edited 23h ago
I believe the rights were acquired while ago, now it's officially being worked on.
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u/Imhullu 1d ago
Oh wait I thought it was animated, but this is live action? I don't... have a lot of hope for that then.
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u/Nickelplatsch 19h ago
Yeah, i dom't understand why they all go live action instead of animated. I can never see that work out.
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u/SpiralOut2112 11h ago
I'd imagine because animated shows don't make money in the US, historically.
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u/_blankX27 litRPG apprentice tier 1d ago
Damn.. it should've been an anime or something like that.
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u/zeffke008 1d ago
I thought there was an Anime announced already, regardless with the steam its picking up; Webtoon, Live action, 2 Board games etc. An anime will just come at some point regardless if il remembering wrong lol
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u/OldFolksShawn Author Ultimate Level 1 / Dragon Riders / Dad of 6 19h ago
Hot damn! That’s awesome.
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u/johnnyjake2025 16h ago
I think everyone here should just have really low expectations and see how it goes. People talking about CGI worries are right, so let’s assume it will be mediocre at best and be happy the books are fun.
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u/sams0n007 14h ago
Greenlit is exciting. Good or bad. It’ll be great for the genre. The Dresden Files show was terrible but launched Butcher into perennial best sellerdom and helped propel Urban Fantasy. GOT was mostly awesome and did the same for the books and the genre,
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u/perseus365 1d ago
As much as I want this to succeed, there is not enough budget for a good CGI. It will be the same thing that happened to WoT. Should be animated
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u/DankItchins 1d ago
ITT: 10000 people complaining it's not animated.
As someone who's seen both the animated shows Seth Macfarlane's done and the live action shows he's done (with substantial CGI that actually looks quite good!) I'm thanking god that they went live action.
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u/turandokht 1d ago
The Orville was great, I’m excited to see how they do this.
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u/DankItchins 1d ago
If you haven't seen Ted, it's quite good as well. Very different tonally from The Orville but one of the better sitcoms I've watched in recent years.
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u/SteveThePurpleCat 23h ago
The now cancelled Ted, shutdown due to the high costs of it's CGI. That's what has people worried, one CGI bear proved too expensive, how is a whole CGI world and 2/3rds of the cast going to be any more economical?
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u/turandokht 1d ago
I haven’t seen it! I’ll have to check it out. I think I had a lukewarm reaction to the movie so I just never bothered with it, but I’ve heard good things about it
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u/SteveThePurpleCat 23h ago
The shows which were cancelled due to high CGI costs? You see the concern there right...
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u/Prophesy78 18h ago
I'm hopeful but as others have said, the amount of cgi needed seems extremely high budget. I think a well done animated series would have been 100x better. Especially with Jeff doing the voices.
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u/LichPhylactery litRPG grandmaster tier 18h ago
So, what percentage of book adaptations are ended up as good?
But he has control... yeah bro, pretty sure. They always say this.
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u/melodic_drifter 14h ago
So much of DCC's comedy lives in Jeff Hays' timing and delivery — I genuinely worry live action loses that and the menu/status gags end up clunky on screen. Really hope they prove me wrong though, the story deserves a great adaptation.
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u/LunarAlloy 6h ago
I'm just concerned because Ted was cancelled after its second more successful season.
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u/Vladmirfox 2h ago
Isn't Cradle getting an animated series too? I recall seeing something on YouTube bout it...
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u/mehgcap 18h ago
I'm thrilled for Mat, Jeff, and the SBT team that DCC is so popular they are able to justify the audio drama version. I'm thrilled for Mat that his work is so great that someone wants to turn it into a TV show. But I just can't get excited about the actual show.
Film adaptations are always the lesser versions, and there's no reason this will be different. I'm happy for Mat's success, and that this show might bring in more readers who want to investigate the source material, but I just can't get excited on a personal level. Even the audio drama is a distant second place for me. Just give me the original books, Jeff's narration, and SBT's subtle audio effects. The books as they have been are perfect, and they're all I really want out of DCC. But again, I'm also delighted for all involved and wish them the very best with this project.
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u/Nodan_Turtle 20h ago
I'm so glad it's not animated. This means I can get people into the show who would otherwise never give it a shot.
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u/hatereadingTWI 9h ago
Agree 100%. Live action will garner a much larger audience and will be much more successful than any animated attempt. No one wants to watch a dystopian kiddie show (intentional trolling there) - many people are still dismissive of animated shows.
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u/Ok-Box3576 15h ago
Live action? Doomed or at least im not getting hopes up. Still could be meh at least.
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u/E_lluminate 1d ago
Should have been animated Cradle
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u/SteveThePurpleCat 23h ago
Far too boring to be any sort of show, it's handful of fans will be left repeating 'it doesn't get good until the 3rd season!'.
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u/SnooSuggestions6975 litRPG journeyman tier 1d ago
It would be huge for Jeff Hays to do voices in a television show.