Dungeon Crawler Carl has finally found someone to steer the ship. Two someones, as it turns out.
Chris Yost and Eric Heisserer are set as co-showrunners on Peacock’s adaptation of Matt Dinniman’s LitRPG series — the first genuine sign of life from a project that has been quiet since it was officially confirmed earlier this year.
Yost had already signed on as a writer, so the co-showrunner title is a step up. Bringing Heisserer alongside him also doubles the amount of sci-fi experience in the room.
Who these two are, and why it matters
Yost has logged years inside the Star Wars and Marvel machines. He consulted and wrote on The Mandalorian’s first season, and he shares writing credit on two Thor sequels, The Dark World and Ragnarok. His most recent job before this was running Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at Paramount+.
Heisserer last showran Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, a series he also created and produced. He is probably better known, though, for writing Arrival, adapted for Denis Villeneuve from the Ted Chiang novella.
Factor in Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door on the production side, and this stops reading like a hopeful option and starts reading like a show with an actual spine.
Princess Donut keeps her voice
The second piece of good news came out of San Diego Comic-Con: audiobook narrator Jeff Hays is reprising his role as the voice of Princess Donut.
Dinniman didn’t mince words about why there was no other option. “He’s so associated with that sound and that voice. Anybody else would be jarring,” he said.
Anyone who has spent time with the audiobooks understood that already. It’s reassuring that the people building the show understand it too.
The books aren’t slowing down either
A release date for the series still hasn’t been set. The source material, meanwhile, keeps building momentum on its own: Dinniman has two more books to write, and a tabletop RPG based on the series lands in December.
The same can’t quite be said for the platform’s approach to pricing. Peacock just confirmed its fourth price hike in four years. The company is cushioning the blow by bundling YouTube Premium into subscriptions at no additional charge at some point in early 2027.
So the tally: two capable showrunners, MacFarlane’s shingle behind the project, the right voice for Donut, and a subscription that costs more than it did a year ago. Three out of four isn’t bad.