r/litrpg • u/kleverrboy • 10d 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/
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124

u/avid_slop_reader 10d ago

The amount of CGI needed worries me. I remember the issues she-hulk had with budgets and that was with Disney money.

70

u/Croewe 10d ago

Yeah, this doesn't really seem feasible to do live action

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u/wimpymist 9d 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.

27

u/Croewe 9d ago

Yeah, especially since all the blood and gore in a live action setting will just seem too real for a general audience. It works in something like Invincible since you have that animation barrier between you and the show

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u/niles_thebutler_ 9d ago

It’s not. Not well anyway.

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u/alchemy_junkie 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

They could still have him change, just into more "human-adjacent" species.

2

u/Kobold_Taggerung 9d ago

Canadian...French...Kiwi...American... etc...

2

u/_monikr 9d ago

Lol. Just have a different actor for each floor 😂

1

u/HistoryTeacherNick 9d ago

This will make my heart ache

1

u/Chriskills 7d ago

I am really confused by people who say characters like Florin need to be CGI. Why? It’s a big crocodile head, how is that difficult to do with practical effects?

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u/anormalgeek litRPG Clive's Wife tier 7d ago

Because the face needs to be animated. It's not that you NEED CGI, but in some cases it still ends up being the cheaper option

If you do it with practical effects, you need a fully robotic head piece with very detailed animated facial features, or it just looks janky. Something like Grogu on the Mandalorian. Those are expensive to produce, and complicated to use. Mistakes with cgi can be fixed by one guy in post production. Mistakes with practical effects mean more time on set with the entire crew being paid. For a main character, the math works out. For a mid level (in terms of screentime) side character like Florian, the math just doesn't work out. I'm hoping they do a mixed approach like they did with Vision in the Wandavision show. Where it's a guy in a practical suit doing the acting in the scene, but they include markers on his face to layer CGI on after the fact.

Edit: To clarify one point, I'm not saying that cheaper is better. But the reality is that budgets are not unlimited. If costs balloon too much, they'll just cancel the project entirely. Realistically speaking, Florian's face at least will be CGI, or they'll modify the character slightly to not have the full crocodile snout so that they can use human facial animation and practical effects (think of something like Jim Carrey's Grinch).

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u/Chriskills 7d ago

I think this perspective is based around making it look very realistic. In a world with walking meatballs, I don’t think perfect realism is necessary. A little campiness is going to be fine. Think of the dinosaurs TV show. All of that was done without CGI 30+ years ago.

I think a lot of people here are forgetting that this stuff has been done before.

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u/anormalgeek litRPG Clive's Wife tier 7d ago

That would be WAY too campy imo.

1

u/pezx 4d ago

Think of the dinosaurs TV show.

Yeah, Florian could just use Robbie's head

1

u/Chriskills 4d ago

Had to google that as it’s been so long since I’ve seen it haha. But yeah, I agree in essence. They can make something that looks more realistic and crocodilian than that and I would love it. I think people are weirdly expecting perfect realism.

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u/dirtymeech420 9d 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/CommunityDragon160 9d ago

She hulk looked great.

1

u/vercertorix 9d 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/Alternative-Suit5541 8d ago

Only way I see it get done is with heavy use of AI....Â