Star Bharat has decided to axe its recently launched show Mann Kee Awaaz Pratigya 2, as per reports. Produced by well-known television producer Rajan Shahi in association with Pearl Grey, the show hit the airwaves on March 15, 2021. It is the sequel to Star Plus’ popular show Mann Kee Awaaz Pratigya, which had a glorious run of over 750 episodes from 2009 to 2012. The predecessor and its successor both starred Pooja Gor and Arhaan Behll in lead roles.
If reports are to be believed, Star Bharat will beam the final episode of Mann Kee Awaaz Pratigya 2 next week. It will be replaced by Tera Mera Saath Rahe in August. Though the makers have not said anything officially, buzz has it that it is low TRP that has forced the channel to discontinue the show.
Sharing more details, a source in the know tells an Indian publication, “The sequel has not done well in terms of the rating ever since it was launched. Several tracks were introduced to spice up the show but nothing worked. The makers even took a year’s leap but even that didn’t help. So, this decision was finally taken to wrap up the show in the next few days.”
The source goes on to add that the news of Mann Kee Awaaz Pratigya 2 going off-air has come as a huge shock for the entire cast and crew of the show. “The news has come as a shock to the entire cast and crew of the show, who have just got to know about the development,” concludes the source.
Keep visiting this space over and again for more updates and reveals from the world of entertainment.
Sophie Turner revealed kissing Kit Harington in their new gothic horror The Dreadful was “vile.”
The actors spent eight seasons as siblings Sansa Stark and Jon Snow on Game of Thrones.
Turner, who is also a producer on the film, suggested Harington for the role despite their sibling-like bond.
The film has yet to receive an official release date but features Turner, Harington, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laurence O’Fuarain.
Sophie Turner has admitted that kissing her Game of Thrones co-star Kit Harington for their new gothic horror film The Dreadful was far from romantic. Speaking during her recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the actress said the scene was so uncomfortable that both she and Harington were “retching.”
Turner, who played Sansa Stark across eight seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones, explained that while she and Harington have not shared the screen since 2019, their sibling-like relationship remained intact. That history made their romantic scenes in The Dreadful especially challenging.
Sophie Turner says kissing Kit Harington in The Dreadful was a vile experienceGetty Images
Why Sophie Turner cast Kit Harington despite the challenge
Turner is not only starring in The Dreadful but also serving as a producer. When writer-director Natasha Kermani asked who she envisioned as the male lead, Turner immediately thought of her former on-screen brother.
“I sent the script to Kit, and he came back saying, ‘Yeah, I’d love to, but this is going to be really weird, Soph,’” Turner told Meyers. At first, she didn’t understand his hesitation. “Then I went through the script again and it’s just kiss, kiss, sex, kiss. And suddenly I realised, oh right, that’s my brother.”
Despite the discomfort, both agreed that the script was strong enough to take on the challenge.
For Turner and Harington, the first scene they had to shoot together was a kiss, which proved to be even more awkward than they anticipated. “We put it out of our minds, and then when it came to shooting, we were both retching. It was vile. Honestly, the worst,” Turner said.
She even compared the experience to a scene in her upcoming thriller Trust, in which she had to share a room with cockroaches and rats crawling over her. “And kissing Kit was still worse,” she admitted.
Sophie Turner reveals she and Kit Harington were retching while filming kiss sceneGetty Images
What is The Dreadful about?
Set during the 15th century amid the Wars of the Roses, The Dreadful follows Anne, played by Turner, who lives with her mother-in-law Morwen on the outskirts of society. Their fragile existence is disrupted when a man from Anne’s past, portrayed by Harington, returns and sets off a dangerous chain of events.
The film also stars Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden, Laurence O’Fuarain, and Jonathan Howard. While an official release date has not yet been confirmed, the gothic horror has already drawn attention thanks to Turner and Harington’s casting.
The Dreadful Poster IMDB
Turner and Harington’s lasting Game of Thrones bond
Both actors became household names through Game of Thrones, where they were introduced as members of the Stark family. Although later seasons revealed Jon Snow’s Targaryen lineage, viewers still saw Sansa and Jon as siblings, making their romantic scenes in The Dreadful all the more different.
Turner herself acknowledged how strange it was, even joking to Vogue earlier this year, “Sorry guys, it’s weird for all of us.”
For fans of the HBO series, the reunion of Sansa Stark and Jon Snow on screen is already generating curiosity. Whether audiences see the chemistry or share Turner’s discomfort remains to be seen when The Dreadful finally premieres.
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Ryan Reynolds teases Deadpool’s Avengers connection with graffiti artwork on Instagram
Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool will appear in Avengers: Doomsday, but not as an Avenger.
The Hollywood Reporter confirmed his role after Reynolds teased it on Instagram.
The film will release on 18 December 2026, with Robert Downey Jr. returning as Doctor Doom.
Wolverine and other X-Men characters are still expected, though not officially confirmed.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is preparing for its biggest crossover since Avengers: Endgame, and Ryan Reynolds has just reignited fan excitement. After weeks of speculation, reports now confirm that Deadpool will feature in Avengers: Doomsday. However, unlike Thor, Doctor Strange, or Spider-Man, Wade Wilson won’t be lining up with the Avengers team.
The news follows a cryptic Instagram post from Reynolds showing the Avengers “A” marked with Deadpool-style graffiti, fuelling speculation that Marvel’s most unpredictable hero would return.
Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool confirmed for Avengers: DoomsdayGetty Images
Why isn’t Deadpool part of the Avengers lineup?
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Deadpool will indeed be part of Avengers: Doomsday, but not as an Avenger. Sources suggest his role will remain separate from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, keeping in line with his outsider persona.
This approach also makes sense from a storytelling perspective. Deadpool’s chaotic nature and fourth-wall-breaking humour are very different from the tone of the Avengers franchise, making him better suited as a wildcard in the multiverse narrative rather than a core team member.
Reynolds himself has previously joked that Deadpool’s story would “end” if he ever became an Avenger, calling it Wade Wilson’s ultimate dream-come-true scenario.
What role will Deadpool play in Avengers: Doomsday?
While Marvel Studios has not revealed plot details, industry insiders suggest that Deadpool may link the Avengers with the X-Men and multiverse storylines. His last film, Deadpool & Wolverine, grossed over £1 billion (₹10,500 crore) worldwide, making him one of Marvel’s most profitable characters.
Given that the graffiti symbol Reynolds shared resembles the “Void’s Resistance” logo from Deadpool & Wolverine, fans believe his new mission could tie directly into Avengers: Doomsday.
The film’s confirmed villain, Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, will unite the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and possibly the X-Men against his multiverse army. Deadpool’s ability to jump between realities makes him an essential player in the upcoming conflict.
One of the biggest fan questions is whether Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine will appear in Avengers: Doomsday. The ending of Deadpool & Wolverine teased the duo continuing their adventures together, suggesting that Logan’s return is highly possible.
So far, Marvel has kept Wolverine’s involvement secret, but Reynolds’ confirmed role increases the chances of Jackman joining him. Channing Tatum has also been confirmed to reprise Gambit, adding to speculation that Doombreaker (the rumoured multiverse resistance lineup) could be forming on screen.
Marvel Studios has shifted its release calendar several times, but Avengers: Doomsday is now scheduled for 18 December 2026. Originally planned for May 2026, the delay pushed Avengers: Secret Wars to December 2027.
The film is currently in production in London, and while Marvel has kept set leaks under tight control, occasional images have hinted at large-scale battle sequences and surprising team-ups.
Since Endgame, Marvel has struggled to replicate its earlier momentum. Many fans and critics argue that the franchise has become fragmented, with too many storylines running at once. Bringing in Deadpool, a proven box-office powerhouse, signals Marvel’s attempt to restore confidence and unify audiences ahead of Phase Six’s finale.
Reynolds’ Deadpool is not just a comedic addition; he’s a bridge between Marvel’s different universes, from Fox’s X-Men to the Disney-led Avengers and Fantastic Four. His presence ensures Avengers: Doomsday will appeal to both long-time fans and new audiences.
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Urvashi Pathania reveals how a childhood bleaching memory shaped her haunting short Skin on colourism
Skin confronts colourism through horror, transforming memory into a grotesque clinic where melanin is harvested as a commodity.
Urvashi Pathania recalls her earliest memory of being bleached at nine after relatives said her dark skin would affect marriage prospects.
The film frames colourism as an “economic horror,” linking beauty standards to exploitation and resource plunder.
Skin was workshopped at the prestigious Sundance Labs and is being developed into a feature-length project.
Pathania believes horror is the most visceral way to capture inherited prejudice and social cruelty.
Full interview and the complete video are available on the Eastern Eye YouTube channel.
When filmmaker Urvashi Pathania talks about her short film Skin, her words carry the same sharpness and intimacy as the story itself. The short film leaves audiences equally unsettled and haunted. It’s not merely genre horror but a brave examination of colourism, where a personal wound becomes a grotesque clinic that harvests melanin as a commodity. In this Eastern Eye exclusive, Pathania discusses the origins and inspirations behind her film.
Filmmaker Urvashi Pathania opens up about the childhood memory that inspired her acclaimed short film Skin Getty Images
The film’s most harrowing image; of a woman submerged in a fluorescent tank as her skin dissolves, comes from a real childhood memory. “I was nine when one of my mum’s friends said, ‘Cute kid, but you need to do something about her dark skin if you ever want her to get married,’” Pathania remembers. Her mother, who was fair-skinned, listened. “She put a homemade bleaching paste on me,” Pathania says, “and I remember screaming in the bathtub.” That early sense of being trapped, of a body altered without consent, became the ghost at Skin’s core.
Pathania intentionally opens the film not with the clinic but with two sisters squabbling in a car. Ria, a dark-skinned influencer and a vocal champion of skin positivity, is the viewer’s entry point: incredulous, furious, and protective when Kanika announces she will bleach her skin. “Ria is the voice of the audience,” Pathania explains. “We enter through her disbelief and the love that’s tangled up in it.”
The clinic’s fluorescent hell, Markandeya, reveals the scale of the horror: an assembly line where dark-skinned women are drained and their melanin routed into glowing vats for wealthier, fairer clients. Pathania deliberately frames this as economic horror. “I wanted it to feel bigger than skin bleaching,” she says. “It’s about harvesting, of resources, of culture, of beauty rituals. Whether it’s the brown earth being plundered or the bodies of women of colour being commodified, the cost is always disproportionately ours.”
That cost is encoded in the film’s visual language. Pathania and her longtime cinematographer Catherine crafted a lighting palette that is as much metaphor as aesthetic. “Horror films usually hide terror in darkness. But here, the whitest moment is the most terrifying,” Pathania notes. Fair clients bask in amber-lit pools, their skin steeped in stolen warmth, while women of colour are exposed under cold, fluorescent tones that reveal the rawness of their natural skin. “It was the only way to show the truth of what Kanika loses,” Pathania says, referencing the film’s climax where her skin tone literally changes.
For Pathania, horror is a natural language to speak about inheritance, not genes, but the ideas passed down inside families and communities. Kanika’s desire to resemble her fair-skinned mother is a devastating detail because it links colourism to maternal love and social survival. “We like to blame our parents,” Pathania says, “but we carry it too. These cycles don’t just live in the past. They’re active.” The film, in fact, maps how affection and aspiration can become vectors for harm.
The film’s cruelest twist lands in its climax. Ria, the sister who loves her melanin, tries to rescue Kanika and becomes trapped instead, drained for the supposed benefit of others. “One person might individually gain—lighter skin, different treatment—but society pays,” Pathania says. “Every time a new standard is set, it hurts women as a whole.” The swap is designed to be both literal and moral: the personal gain of assimilation carries a social cost.
Juniper, the clinic director, weaponises empathy—polite, warm, a girlboss peddling empowerment as she harvests. “She’s complicit and trapped,” Pathania says. “In the feature version, you see the strings go even higher.”
Perhaps the most haunting image comes in the film’s closing: older women, waiting to bathe in stolen melanin, unaware of the violence behind their “fountain of youth.” Pathania denies them villainy and implicates us all. “They don’t know the cost,” she says. “They hear about a fountain of youth and want it. That desire is universal. The tragedy is that the system allowing it is invisible to them.”
Asked to name a single scene that sums up Skin, Pathania points to a quiet, devastating parallel: Ria struggling with foundation that’s too light while Kanika undergoes the bleaching ritual. “It’s the same violence in different forms,” she says. “One is subtle, one is grotesque. But both come from being told you’re not enough.”
Skin may be short, but it is not small. It exists as proof of a larger project. Pathania workshopped a feature script for Skin at the Sundance Labs, and the short reads like a hard, lucid preview of that longer story. She’s also writing other genre pieces, including a ghost story about housing injustice in Manhattan, because for Pathania, horror remains the most honest language for telling political stories that live in the body.
Skin lingers because it refuses easy catharsis. There’s no victory, only the echo of Ria’s screams in the tank. Pathania’s craft is in how she shows colourism doesn’t merely humiliate; it becomes a literal marketplace. “You can walk out of the clinic lighter,” she says. “But someone else pays the price.”
Rapper Sean Kingston sentenced to three and a half years in US federal prison.
Fraud scheme, run with his mother, involved luxury goods worth more than £740,000.
Items included designer watches, furniture, a 232-inch LED TV and a bulletproof Cadillac Escalade.
Kingston apologised in court; his mother was jailed for five years in July.
Text messages showed the pair discussing fake payment receipts.
Conviction and sentencing
Rapper Sean Kingston has been sentenced to three and a half years in a US federal prison for his role in a fraud scheme worth over £740,000.
The Jamaican-American singer, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, was convicted earlier this year alongside his mother, Janice Turner, of wire fraud. Prosecutors said they exploited Kingston’s celebrity status to obtain luxury items without paying for them.
How the scheme worked
According to prosecutors, Kingston contacted victims via social media, claiming he wished to buy high-end products. He then invited them to his homes in South Florida, promising to promote their goods on his platforms or introduce them to other celebrities.
When payments were due, Kingston or his mother sent fraudulent wire transfer receipts. While some victims later received compensation after legal intervention or lawsuits, most were left out of pocket.
Evidence at trial
Prosecutors said the scheme netted more than £740,000 in goods, including luxury watches, furniture, a 232-inch LED television and a bulletproof Cadillac Escalade.
Text messages shown in court revealed Kingston instructing his mother: “I told you to make [a] fake receipt.”
Apology and defence
Before sentencing, Kingston apologised to the court and said he had learned from his actions. He will begin serving his sentence immediately.
His mother, Janice Turner, was jailed for five years in July.
Defence lawyer Zeljka Bozanic described Kingston as “a soft guy who grew up poor when he rose to fame overnight”, arguing he still had the mentality of a teenager and struggled to manage his finances.
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Sholay turns 50 with global 4K comeback and untold stories
Fifty years have passed since that dusty road in Ramgarh first brought us Jai, Veeru, Basanti, Thakur, and a villain whose name still sends a shiver. It’s a film you don’t just watch, you inherit. Parents pass it to kids like a family heirloom. Every rewatch is a homecoming, yet it still surprises you.
And now, as 15 August 2025 marks its golden jubilee, Sholay is not just being remembered, it’s being reborn. Here’s how its fire still crackles, half a century on.
Sholay turns 50 with global 4K comeback and untold stories Instagram/rameshsippy47
1. Global 4K debut in Toronto
The Film Heritage Foundation’s painstakingly restored 4K version will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2025. A packed 1,800-seat Roy Thomson Hall will watch it in never-before clarity. The question on every Indian fan’s lips: “When’s it hitting home screens here?”
2. “Yeh Dosti” hits the UK stage
A full-scale musical and dance tour by LuvEntertainment is bringing Sholay’s beats to life across Hayes, Leicester, Coventry, and beyond. Think “Mehbooba Mehbooba” with blazing lights and live choreography. Like nostalgia, but with stage pyrotechnics.
3. The ending we were never meant to see
For decades, the true climax, Thakur kicking Gabbar to death, was a whisper among film buffs. Censors chopped it out in 1975. In June 2025, the Bologna festival unveiled it to a stunned audience.
4. Casting “what-ifs” and wild sets
Danny Denzongpa was first choice for Gabbar before schedules clashed. Amitabh Bachchan was billed fourth. Dharmendra allegedly bribed lighting crew to prolong romantic takes with Hema Malini. Meanwhile, Jaya Bachchan quietly shot her scenes while pregnant.
5. The jaw-dropping pay scale
Bachchan got £9,400 (₹1,00,000). Dharmendra, the top earner, got £14,100 (₹1,50,000). British stuntmen made £470 (₹50,000) each for the train heist scene, a sum that, at the time, could buy a small flat in Mumbai.
6. From flop to phenomenon
When it released, Sholay had slow ticket sales and mixed reviews. Javed Akhtar admitted he kept watching it himself, worried. Then word-of-mouth turned it into India’s highest-grossing film for nearly 20 years.
7. The records that won’t die
Five years straight at Mumbai’s Minerva Theatre. Over 25 crore footfalls worldwide. Proof that sometimes, the audience just needs time to catch up to genius.
8. Blood, sweat, and real bullets
Basanti’s tanga chase? Twelve days in scorching heat. Some action scenes used actual bullets for “authenticity”, Dharmendra’s idea. The first cut ran over four hours before it was trimmed for release.
9. Gabbar’s roots in reality
Amjad Khan modelled him on 1950s Chambal Valley dacoits. His gravelly “Kitney aadmi the?” didn’t just enter pop culture, it became shorthand for suspicion in Indian households.
10. Writers who never looked back
Javed Akhtar hasn’t rewatched Sholay since its 70mm re-release. His reasoning: “Those lost in their history have no hope for their future.” It’s a sentiment that keeps the film alive, we remember, even if its creators have moved on.
You don’t talk about Sholay like any other film. You talk about where you first saw it. You talk about watching it with people who aren’t here anymore. You talk about quoting its lines at weddings, in classrooms, in WhatsApp groups.
Fifty years later, it’s still more than cinema. It’s part of our vocabulary, our memory, our muscle. And as its 4K rebirth travels the world, Sholay reminds us: some friendships, some enemies, and some stories never fade.