Though a release date remains forthcoming, and information about the show is scarce, Infinity: Paradise Lost is on its way, and the cast and creatives behind it are excited for what comes next.
Based on the tabletop game Infinity, Infinity: Paradise Lost is an upcoming animated series announced last July. Other than a trailer and information revealed at a couple of conventions last year, there is not much else known about the show.
But, in interviews with The Direct back at New York Comic Con (NYCC), the team working on the show had a lot to share.
What Can Fans Expect from Infinity Show? Creator Shares
Speaking with The Direct at New York Comic Con last year, the team behind Infinity: Paradise Lost teased what fans can expect from the series when it releases.
The show has been in development since 2019 (it was put on hold because of COVID-19, and development resumed around 2022), and as creator Jay Oliva said, "We've still got a lot of work to do."
Still, Oliva wants fans to get excited about the show ahead of its release, saying he "wanted to create this for fans because [he's] a fan [him]self." He wants to give players of the tabletop game a new way to explore the world and characters they love:
"They're gonna see the world kind of come to life that they've only just seen on the table top, and see the fact that we put a lot of easter eggs in there, but also have the reverence to the source material. I mean, the one thing that I'm best known for is that I adapt things really well, and that's the one thing I wanted to do. I wanted to to create this for fans, because I'm a fan myself."
He explained that there are tastes and influences from many different genres and styles in Infinity: Paradise Lost, teasing elements of "cyberpunk" and "sci-fi," but also "heart:"
"There's cyberpunk, it's sci fi, there's, you know, there's gunplay, there's there's heart, there's a lot of things that that are really near and dear to me. And so I, I really enjoyed trying to, like, put it all together and come up with something kind of brand new."
Bringing "The Boys"-Style World Building to Infinity
Matt Motschenbacher is a producer on Infinity: Paradise Lost, and he is particularly excited for the "world-building" and "ancillary storytelling" elements of it:
"I spent the last decade plus as a studio executive doing world building, working on 'How do we take franchises and create ancillary storytelling?' And I don't want to do that when I have to push a boulder up a mountain, and this was a chance for me to come and be on the other side of the table — make stuff with my friends and create stuff that's going to excite a core fan base, but bring in a new fan base as well."
Motschenbacher's experience in world-building is extensive. Perhaps most notably, he has worked on building out the world of The Boys on Amazon Prime Video as the writer and creator of the "Seven on 7" YouTube mini-series.
He talked about how much work went into "mak[ing] sure everything in 'Seven on 7' was fully canon" and using it to expand the world of The Boys with things that were not "a big enough issue to put into the series:"
"Kripke collaborated with me to make sure everything in 'Seven on 7' was fully canon. ... Kripke was able to put [in] stuff that he wanted to address but wasn't a big enough issue to put into the series. So we collaborated to make sure that everything fit, and we teased elements that people like you ideally would go back and be like, 'Wait, this came in there.'"
One big example of that is the Gen V tease in "Seven on 7," long before the spin-off series was even announced. Motschenbacher was able to plant those seeds early on, to pay off with plans they had for down the road. This is something The Boys has continued to do, using its in-universe social media to continue building out the show's story.
He hopes to bring exactly this to Infinity: Paradise Lost, sharing that there are even plans in the works for comic books that add to the story of the series, which he is "hoping" to see come to fruition by the end of 2025:
"We are close to locking in a comic book publisher, so we will be doing some one shots, as well as a mini series. And because we have independent financing for a lot of this, we're gonna be able to expedite that. So we're hoping to have the first of those things come out late next year."
The Cast Introduces 2 of Infinity's Main Characters
Regarding the plot of Infinity: Paradise Lost, the cast could not share too many details. But they did tease a bit about their characters and how they fit into the show at large.
Zehra Fazal plays Dania in the show, and she feels that exploring a character who "really go[es] on the hero's journey, step by step" has been "an interesting and great ... challenge:"
"Dania, she's on the surface very strong. And she is very strong. She's very physically strong. She's very smart. Internally, there's a deep, deep vulnerability, and she has to develop a sense of trust in herself. And that has been an interesting and great, you know, challenge as an actor, to really go on the hero's journey, step by step, [as] someone so strong
on the outside, and so vulnerable on the inside."
Fazal also teased that the show is "beautiful" and that its visuals "took [her] breath away:"
"I knew that working on a Jay Oliva project was gonna be visually beautiful. The extent to which it is beautiful and the action sequences are so amazing, the world is lit beautifully. Just, Jay and his team ... did a phenomenal job with the visuals of the show. That took my breath away when I saw the completed footage."
Kassad, a mentor of sorts to Dania, is played by Raffi Barsoumian. He talked about how Infinity has this "level of realism, even though [it's] out in space" and that this piece of the show "informed" how he took on his character:
"There's a level of realism, even though we're out in space, even though we're dealing with aliens, there's a grounded-ness to it that sort of informed me in terms of, like, what to bring to Kassad."
He explained that the story has been thought out in great depth and ends with an "emotional punch." Even though the show has been in the works for a while, the creative vision has remained consistent:
"You know, the story that Jay had, I thought was so fleshed out. And I think they stuck to that, and really they landed it with the emotional punch at the end. So I think, I think it was there from the beginning."
Currently, there is no release information for Infinity: Paradise Lost.
Gillian Blum has been a writer at The Direct since 2022, reporting primarily from New York City. Though she covers news from across the entertainment industry, Gillian has a particular focus on Marvel and DC, including comics, movies, and television shows. She also commonly reports on Percy Jackson, Invincible, and other similar franchises.
