Dungeon Crawler Carl finally has someone steering the ship. Two someones, actually.
Chris Yost and Eric Heisserer have been named co-showrunners on the Peacock adaptation of Matt Dinniman’s LitRPG series, which is the first real sign of life the project has shown since it was officially confirmed earlier this year.
Yost was already attached as a writer. Moving him up to co-showrunner is a promotion, and pairing him with Heisserer doubles the sci-fi experience in the room.
Who these two are, and why it matters
Yost has spent years in the Star Wars and Marvel machines. He consulted and wrote on the first season of The Mandalorian, and he co-wrote two Thor sequels: The Dark World and Ragnarok. Before this, he ran Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Paramount+.
Heisserer’s most recent showrunning gig was Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, which he also created and produced. You probably know him better as the writer of Arrival, adapted from Ted Chiang’s novella for Denis Villeneuve.
Add Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door to the production side and this stops looking like a hopeful option and starts looking like a show with a real spine.
Princess Donut keeps her voice
The other piece of good news came out of San Diego Comic-Con: Jeff Hays, who narrates the audiobooks, will reprise his role as the voice of Princess Donut.
Dinniman was blunt about why that was the only correct call. “He’s so associated with that sound and that voice. Anybody else would be jarring,” he said.
Anyone who’s listened to the audiobooks already knew this. Nice to see the people making the show know it too.
The books aren’t slowing down either
There’s still no release date attached to the series. But the source material keeps generating momentum on its own. Dinniman has two books left to write, and a tabletop RPG based on the series arrives in December.
Which is more than you can say for the platform’s pricing strategy. Peacock recently announced its fourth price increase in four years. The service is softening that by folding YouTube Premium into subscriptions at no extra cost sometime in early 2027.
So: two capable showrunners, MacFarlane’s shingle behind it, the right voice for Donut, and a subscription that costs more than it did last year. Three out of four isn’t bad.
