It’s a great time to be a Dungeon Crawler Carl fan. Matt Dinniman’s LitRPG book series has exploded in popularity over the last year, making it one of the biggest titles around and bringing in even more new fans by the day. The eighth book in the series, A Parade of Horribles, just hit shelves this month and most DCC faithful have already burned their way through it. There’s a graphic novel adaptation being published, a tabletop RPG that just shattered crowdfunding records, merch hitting shelves everywhere, and a TV adaptation on the way from Seth MacFarlane and Peacock. The future is bright for Crawlers everywhere, but many who have already read all the books might be looking for something else to fill the Donut-sized void while waiting for the next chapter of the saga.
There isn’t anything in the world quite like Dungeon Crawler Carl, but a wildly underrated sci-fi series on Hulu gets closer than just about anything else. Future Man, which stars Hunger Games alum Josh Hutcherson, premiered a couple of years before the first Dungeon Crawler Carl book was released, and it checks a lot of the same boxes as the best-selling book series. If you’re a DCC fan that hasn’t seen Future Man yet, you’re in for a real treat.
‘Future Man’ Remains an Underrated Gem
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg brought Future Man to Hulu back in 2017, giving a zany and raunchy energy to sci-fi when the genre really needed it. The show never became the outright hit that it probably would be today, had it followed the release of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Still, we got three seasons of hilarious and off-kilter sci-fi escapades, and a group of protagonists that are easy to love.
Future Man revolves around an ordinary janitor named Josh (Hutcherson), who becomes the first person ever to win a seemingly unbeatable video game. When the game ends, its two main characters (Eliza Coupe, Derek Wilson) suddenly appear in real life. They’re from the future, believing Josh is the savior they’ve been looking for, and take him on a journey through time to stop the eventual destruction of humanity.
There are obviously a lot of differences between Future Man and Dungeon Crawler Carl — unfortunately, the former doesn’t feature a talking cat as one of its main characters. But Future Man does effectively mesh the massive stakes of a sci-fi apocalypse with a raunchy, almost whimsical sense of humor that Rogen and Goldberg have deployed on several different projects. Not to mention there are bouts of absurd and unexpected violence littered throughout — a staple of Dinniman’s book series.
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It’d even make the perfect double feature with Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey.’
The Wait for ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ on TV
Dungeon Crawler Carl is officially going the TV route instead of getting a big screen adaptation, which makes a lot of sense given just how big the story is. Spanning eight books (with at least one more to come), the TV format is ideal for Matt Dinniman’s sprawling saga. Ultimately, NBCUniversal landed the rights to the adaptation, and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane was tapped to executive produce it. Since it’s much too mature for NBC and probably USA, the series was given the green light over at Peacock, where it is currently in development.
It’s all been good news for Dungeon Crawler Carl on the TV front, and fans should be excited for what’s in store — even though there’s no telling exactly when the show will actually make it to production. The one big question facing fans, however, is just how MacFarlane and the rest of the creative team are planning to bring DCC to life. The story is baked in, of course, but bringing such a wacky and ever-changing universe to live-action television is certainly a big ask. The set changes with every new floor, many of the characters are aliens or anthropomorphic animal-type races, and Dinniman has proven time and again that his imagination knows no limits. From feral gods to Raul the Crab, there are things in Dungeon Crawler Carl that feel downright challenging to try and bring to a live-action format, especially when television needs to be a little more budget-conscious than a theatrically-released film would.
The adaptation seemed destined for the realm of animation, but it has already been confirmed to be a live-action series. It’s a tall task, and fans everywhere are anxious to see if they can pull it off. This is Carl we’re talking about, though — he always finds a way to pull off the impossible.
