Latest news with #HighRollers
IOL News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Meren Reddy nets big laughs as the lead in the rib-tickling comedy ‘Lucky Fish'
Mayuri Naidu, Meren Reddy and Mekaila Mathys in a scene from the feel-good comedy, 'Lucky Fish'. Image: Supplied I knew of Meren Reddy from his 'City Ses'la' work as an executive producer and actor long before I met him at the launch of SABC3's 'High Rollers'. While unpacking the latter show, he revealed his innovative thinking as a creative and his ardent passion for storytelling. Fast forward several years, post the disruptive Covid-19 pandemic, it was awesome to reach out to Reddy again, this time to chat about 'Lucky Fish', a comedy feature where he wears the hats of co-writer with Craig Gardner, executive producer, as well as the film's lead, Sanjay Pillay. Reddy's admirable candour during our conversation was humbling, and I appreciated the trust he placed in me. Our several off-the-record deviations will, of course, remain confidential. Video Player is loading. 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Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading The film's title is a tribute to the canned fish, which is deeply ingrained in both Indian and coloured culinary traditions. The feel-good comedy centres on a small-town sardine-canning company owner, facing financial troubles, who sponsors a beauty pageant as a publicity stunt. He is joined by his twin sister, Samantha (Mayuri Naidu) and a motley group of beauty queen hopefuls. On how 'Lucky Fish' came to fruition, Reddy took me back to where it all began. He said: This is gonna be a long rambling, but I think, a very significant thing to say, Craig Gardner, who is a writer-director who created 'Suburban Bliss', and the creator of 'City Ses'la', coming together to write a movie. I'm just giving you a context of the two brains behind it.' 'So around 2006, I didn't know who Craig was (at the time), he did a pilot called 'Miss Pilchards' with Stephen Francis, who is the cartoonist for 'Madam & Eve', for M-Net that is completely different to what the movie is now. It was sort of a mockumentary at that point, and it was going to be a television show.' After getting to work with Gardner, who directed 'Scandal' circa 2009 - 2010, where Reddy had a few acting stints, they got to get to know each other better and appreciated each other's sense of humour. Fast forward to 2017, Gardner reached out to Reddy, asking him to take a look at the pilot as they were offered to buy the rights back. Reddy shared: 'And this thing was like two white people who were trying to put on a pageant, and, at one point, Leon Schuster was involved in the pilot, and it was a mess. No offence to Craig, but the core of it was not necessarily available to me. 'But the one thing that I did say to him was, you have no idea how significant tinfish is to an Indian community. So we are going to take this thing now if we go into a deal together and write this thing, and I'm going to drive this thing forward. We're going to adjust the entire thing, and the guy who owns a tinfish company is going to be the focus of the thing. 'He was like, great. And so it was from that that this whole thing was born. So we've written the thing between 2017 and 2024. It took seven years to get there. It's not because we're incapable writers. It was because nobody wanted to give us the money. Like, you know, you get to 2019, 2020, Covid hits.' Meren Reddy wears the hat of co-writer, actor and executive producer on 'Lucky Fish'. Image: Supplied Despite making a strong case around there being a market for this film, using the encouraging numbers of 'The Kandasamys', 'Material', 'Kings of Mulberry Street and 'Three Days to Go' as examples, it was difficult to get someone to back the project. Reddy admitted it was like 'yelling into thunder'. Fortunately, a woman higher up on the ladder at a prominent local streaming platform saw the potential of the film. However, she was overruled by her peers. When she moved to an international streaming platform, she revisited their earlier conversation and managed to get a license agreement before the company pulled out of SA. Reddy expressed his gratitude to the individual, whom he felt best not to name, acknowledging her crucial role in bringing the film to fruition. During his five-week residency at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles last year, he also held online meetings to help finalise the cast in the movie, which is directed by Joshua Rous. Interestingly, he never planned on playing the lead. Reddy recalled: 'I wrote the movie for another actor. But they (the streaming platform) got a hold of my IMDB profile and were pushing for me to play the lead, and I kept trying to convince them that I had written it for somebody else. 'The last time I acted was in 'Trackers' in 2019.' To avoid jeopardising the project, he agreed and rewrote the script as he couldn't pull off a 'really authentic thick Indian accent'. While he always had Naidu in mind to play his sister, he sang the praises of casting director Susan Rossouw, who helped find an amazing ensemble cast. 'It wasn't just the casting brief that she sent out. She started finding people in the community, people who aren't represented, specifically from the Durban cast members. And we found some gems that are kind of on the fringes of our industry, but not like front and centre,' he added. Of course, bagging industry heavyweights Jailoshini Naidoo (Arusha Budhoo) and Jack Devnarain (Melvin Moodley) were a coup. That this film was shot in Phoenix was a bit deal for them, too, as it is unprecedented for homegrown offerings. Overall, Reddy says the film will be enjoyed by a crossover audience. At the moment, he has a few projects on the go, some of which are partnerships with his production house, Ghost Sheep Productions. He has also been approached to write 'Disaster Holiday 2' for Burnt Onion Productions. A sharp mind and disruptive creative, Reddy is gung-ho about leaving indelible footprints with an upcoming international venture. ∎ 'Lucky Fish' is showing at cinemas nationwide.
News24
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- News24
Sive Mabuya-Bukani flaunts her growing baby bump
She has been letting her baby bump grow with pride since announcing her pregnancy. Actress and media personality Sive Mabuya-Bukani is popular for her role in High Rollers and How to Ruin Love on Netflix. The young star has built her name for herself from sharing, getting her breakout role as Xolile on Scandal!, acting scenes on her TikTok, to acting alongside the great stars of South Africa. She is expecting her first child with her husband, Aphiwe Bukani, and the two have been married for three years. 'Bump's out the bag. Thank you for your kindness. We couldn't be happier,' she posted when announcing her pregnancy. In an interview with Drum Sivenathi shared her acting journey and growing up as a pastor's kid while maintaining her own life. 'The pressure to be a perfect child was mostly from outsiders. Whereas at home, my parents were very flexible and they were understanding that at the end of the day, we were kids.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivenathi Mabuya-Bukani 🇿🇦 (@sivemabuya) We take a look at five times the actress made us hush over her baby bump. The premiere of Shaka Ilembe Season 2. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivenathi Mabuya-Bukani 🇿🇦 (@sivemabuya) In a Springbok jersey View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivenathi Mabuya-Bukani 🇿🇦 (@sivemabuya) In a body-hugging black dress View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivenathi Mabuya-Bukani 🇿🇦 (@sivemabuya) A working hun View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivenathi Mabuya-Bukani 🇿🇦 (@sivemabuya) Enjoying her pregnancy View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivenathi Mabuya-Bukani 🇿🇦 (@sivemabuya)
7NEWS
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
‘Grease' star John Travolta's fall from $20M Hollywood paydays to box office bombs
Once among the biggest names in Hollywood, John Travolta is now more punchline than powerhouse, with recent flops and career missteps overshadowing a legacy that once included Oscar nods and million-dollar paydays. Despite iconic turns in Grease, Saturday Night Fever and a major comeback with Pulp Fiction, the 70-year-old actor's more recent efforts have failed to land. His latest films, High Rollers and Mob Land, barely registered with audiences — the latter pulling just £138 ($A287) at the UK box office, reported. Industry insiders say Travolta's staying power may have become his undoing. 'If Travolta had stopped after his Pulp Fiction comeback, he'd be remembered as one of the greats,' one Disney executive told news outlets. 'But now he's like that sad guest who overstayed their welcome at the party.' The reviews back it up. The Guardian labelled High Rollers 'a heart-slowing work of staggering stupidity,' while Rotten Tomatoes has yet to rate it — an awkward silence in itself. Travolta also holds the rare (and unfortunate) honour of scoring two films with a zero per cent rating on the site in the same year (Gotti and Speed Kills, both 2018). In recent years, Travolta has become a fixture in low-budget, straight-to-streaming thrillers known in the industry as 'geezer teezers' — a label popularised by Bruce Willis. These films trade on fading star power to drive rentals, with actors often appearing on screen for mere minutes. Travolta's career has also been dogged by persistent rumours and controversy. One missed opportunity? Turning down the lead in American Gigolo — a box office smash — allegedly over concerns about the film's 'gay subtext.' The role went to Richard Gere, launching him to stardom. It's a long fall for an actor who once lit up the screen — and the dance floor — but in Hollywood, comebacks are always just one hit away.
Business Standard
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Standard
Indian-Born, Global Impact: Jas Mathur's Evolution from Transformational Health Entrepreneur to Hollywood Dealmaker and Actor
Some stories make you pause and wonder: How have we never heard of this person before? Jas Mathur's is one of them. Born in New Delhi, India, and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Jas Mathur is a global force in the making. While he's still emerging as a name in India, his journey already reads like a masterclass in ambition, vision, and transformation. A popular global serial entrepreneur and a tech prodigy, Mathur made his first USD $1 Million by the age of 16, a milestone that could have easily been the climax of most success stories. But for him, it was only the beginning. Jas Mathur is a dynamic Serial Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Wellness Mentor, Film Producer, Actor, and Global Brand Builder, a modern-day Polymath reshaping industries from Wellness to Hollywood. Jas Mathur's journey isn't about fitting in; it's about breaking barriers. His body transformation was a testament to Willpower and Mental Strength, and he's applied that same relentless mindset to Business. From Pro Wrestling Media and Internet Advertising to Online Dating, Surveillance Tech, and Supplements, Jas was an early innovator across Digital Industries. Today, he's the Founder of Limitless X, a publicly traded company based in Los Angeles, and a trusted partner to top Celebrities, Athletes, and Global Brands. Reinvention is not just part of Jas Mathur's story; it defines it. After transforming his Body, Mindset, and Business, he is now stepping into the global spotlight, this time in front of the Camera. Jas stars alongside John Travolta in the upcoming Cash Out 3: The Gentleman Thief, after serving as Executive Producer on the previous installment, High Rollers. Despite having no formal background in Film, his leap into Hollywood is a natural extension of his belief in Fearless Evolution and Limitless Growth. His first foray into Film came in late 2024, when he produced The Man You Don't Know, a bold and timely Documentary about Donald Trump. That debut behind the scenes set the tone for a new chapter, one where Jas brings his Entrepreneurial Drive, Creative Vision, and Transformative Mindset to the world of Film and Entertainment. For Jas, Transformation Is Not a Phase. It Is a Way of Life. Talking about the same, Jas Mathur said, 'I started building Websites at age 11 and was making tens of thousands a month by 14,' Jas shares. 'I dropped out after 10th grade to pursue business full time. But even with all that success, I felt empty. By my early 20s, I weighed over 450 lbs. That was my wake-up call. I took control, lost over 36' off my waist, and went from 6X to L, then realized I did not just want to make money. I wanted to BUILD A LIFE I DON'T NEED A VACATION FROM' That transformation led him to venture into the Health and Dietary Supplements Industry, where Passion, Purpose, and Impact became his new bottom line. 'Everything starts with Vision,' he says. 'But Vision without Skill is just a dream. You need Patience, Consistency, and the Will to grow into the person your Vision demands, and that is how you unlock your Destiny and become LIMITLESS' He's Built Brands, Transformed Lives, and Created Lasting Impact; and He's Only Just Getting Started.
Telegraph
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
How John Travolta went from $20 million to £128 a film
If you had been one of the millions of cinemagoers who watched Look Who's Talking in 1989, you would have hardly have predicted that it was a cursed film. Yet now, three and a half decades later, unfortunate fates have befallen its three lead actors. Kirstie Alley died in 2022, after a series of personal and professional disasters. Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia around the same time and retired from acting, leaving his lasting legacy as the films he made in his heyday, rather than the immediately forgotten low-budget B-movies he specialised in for the last years of his career. And as for John Travolta? Well, he's still working, and still making pictures. Except, for his own dignity, it might be time that he stopped doing so. If you have not seen the 71-year-old Travolta's latest film High Rollers, then don't worry, nobody else has either. It has received the most nominal of theatrical releases imaginable in the UK, and may well have made about the same kind of money that 2023's Mob Land grossed when it came out: an unimpressive $171 (approximately £128) from three screens. It is the kind of quickie that the actor has been specialising in for years, to negligible artistic or financial impact. In fact, it is the swiftly made sequel to another film, 2024's Cash Out, which stars him as the same character, mastermind professional thief Mason Goddard. However this one does, a third picture in this series has already been filmed, between March and April this year, and will probably be released early in 2026, if not before. In 2018, one of this newspaper's writers, reflecting on Travolta's apparently moribund career, reflected that 'He's a relic of a different time, and struggling to find his place in a world that has evolved far beyond him.' This has been the case for many actors who once bestrode the heights of Hollywood like colossuses but have now been reduced to appearing in the most derivative and poorly made pap imaginable. (The lack of quality inherent in Cash Out and High Rollers might be best expressed by its director Randall Emmett, to whom we shall return, working under the pseudonym 'Ives', as if in shame. Don't worry, Mr Emmett, you will not be forgotten.) It is generally a given that the star system has collapsed (Tom Cruise and, if F1 does the business, Brad Pitt aside). A-list actors who once commanded $20 million (approximately £14.9 million) a picture without blinking (as Travolta once did) have either had to endlessly reprise their best-known roles (hello, Harrison Ford), quietly retired from cinema (we're looking at you, Mr Nicholson) or have continued to work in ever-worsening projects. Still, even by these miserable standards, Travolta seems to have thrown himself in at the shallow end with gusto. One of the many low points came when he played the mobster John Gotti in a curiously indulgent biopic that portrayed a mass-murdering gangster as a charming, essentially decent family man, to critical and audience disbelief alike. It is one of the relatively few mainstream pictures to have an uncoveted 0 per cent rating on the reviews aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, meaning it has not received a single positive review. Only slightly better received was the Fred Durst directed and co-written stalker drama The Fanatic, in which Travolta played an autistic man obsessed by his favourite film star. As one of the most famous figures in Hollywood, you might have expected the actor to bring an unusual degree of empathy and knowledge to the role. But as the New York Times remarked of The Fanatic, it 'delineates the border that separates the merely stale from the genuinely rancid'. Since 2018, he has made eight films including Gotti and The Fanatic, and one curious short offering, The Shepherd, based on a novella by the late Frederick Forsyth, and in which he fleetingly appears as the eponymous shepherd, a ghostly WWII pilot guiding other airmen to safety. Still, the Iain Softley-directed, Alfonso Cuarón-produced mini-feature is infinitely more watchable than just about anything else that he has appeared in over the same period, harnessing what remains of his movie-star charisma to diverting effect. Otherwise, his pictures are more of the same; braindead action and crime films that manage to rope Travolta in alongside other actors, who are paid a lot of money for a few days' work and to put their name above the title. These have included Willis, who cannot be blamed for putting together a retirement fund, Morgan Freeman and even Robert de Niro, whose appearance in the 2013 thriller Killing Season (opposite Travolta, naturally) may have represented a nadir in the career of the man who once appeared in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. But since then, de Niro has gone on to reunite with Scorsese and be Oscar-nominated, as well as to be charmless and monosyllabic in interviews. His co-star, by way of contrast, continues his inexorable decline into mediocrity. You'd call him the Doug McClure of contemporary cinema, but at least McClure was having fun in his B-movies like Warlords of Atlantis and At The Earth's Core. Travolta, meanwhile, is stuck far beneath the earth's core, in endless, awful dross that represents a kind of cinematic hell. The man responsible for keeping him in this eternal bondage is Emmett, whose company Emmett/Furla Oasis Films has become synonymous with a bait 'n' switch technique known as the 'geezer teaser'. The idea is that audiences are lured into watching a picture with a well-known lead, usually a Willis or Travolta, but these actors have only been hired to work for a couple of days, and are on screen for a matter of a few scenes and 10 minutes or so. (One obvious giveaway – in higher-budget films, too – is that the actor appears on the same set for all their scenes, in only slightly different costumes.) While Emmett, aka 'the Tasmanian devil', as his business partner once called him, has been involved with some artistically respectable pictures (including Scorsese's Silence), most of his output is poorly made rot that has negligible appeal to anyone apart from the terminally bored or the pathologically undemanding. As for the A-list actors paid huge amounts to appear in his terrible pictures, Al Pacino, who earned $6 million (approximately £4.4 million) for 19 days of work on American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally, cheerily set out his own estimation of Emmett when he sent him an email – which subsequently leaked. 'Let's do this Randall. I'm not going for the A's or the B's,' Pacino wrote. 'I'm going for something between C and B. I don't like Ds.' Still, Pacino is a bona fide cinematic legend, whereas Travolta these days is an increasingly pitiable figure. His Nineties heyday of Pulp Fiction and Face/Off is long since gone, and the last cinematic release of any note that he appeared in was Oliver Stone's modestly successful 2012 picture Savages, in which he had a supporting role as a corrupt DEA agent. He has had occasional flurries of visibility since then, admittedly. There was a major appearance in 2016's The People vs OJ Simpson as the attorney Robert Shapiro, for which he was Emmy and Golden Globe nominated. At his best, Travolta was always better playing an anti-hero, or an outright villain, than he ever was a good guy. In most of his most memorable roles, there's something off-the-leash about him, and as Shapiro, his line readings and over-the-top theatrics gave him his most enjoyable part since 2001's Swordfish. Few would dispute Travolta's acting ability, more his choice in projects, which presumably stems from a lavish lifestyle that includes his own Boeing 737, parked outside his capacious Florida mansion. But after a while, there is only so much money one man can need. Appearing in Cash In – sorry, Cash Out – is not going to make any existential difference. In 1978, after his first flurry of success with Grease and Saturday Night Live, Rolling Stone was sufficiently confident in the future career of the young Travolta to declare that 'He will be revered forever, in the manner of Elvis, James Dean, [and] Marilyn Monroe.' Had Travolta retired from cinema in, say, 1999, this reputation would still be intact. But he made the catastrophic decision to celebrate his Scientology faith with the all-time-disaster Battlefield Earth in 2000, which did nothing for his credibility and turned him into a laughing stock. In retrospect, it seems incredible that he was still able to play leading roles in mainstream pictures like Tony Scott's remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 and Hairspray. The unlovely legacy of Battlefield Earth – recently voted the worst picture ever made by IMDB users – still hangs over him to this day. It is also true that the actor has suffered some significant personal losses; his son Jett died in 2009 and his wife, the actress Kelly Preston, died of breast cancer in 2020. Most would feel sympathy for him if he chose either to step away from film altogether or to concentrate on taking small, interesting roles with talented directors. It is easy to imagine Paul Thomas Anderson or Christopher Nolan offering Travolta a career-resurrecting role, albeit one in which his considerable vanity might be stripped away from him. Instead, his next part in a film anyone might have any interest in seeing is in the musical romantic comedy That's Amore, in which Travolta stars opposite Katherine Heigl – 25 years his junior – as a lifelong bachelor who meets and falls in love with a troubled woman. It has been described as 'a present-day Marty', and has some potential, especially if Travolta and Heigl make for a convincing on-screen duo. Yet even here there are difficulties. The film, which is written and directed by the Oscar-winning Green Book screenwriter Nick Vallelonga, was shot in late 2022, and is still awaiting a release date. It was not helped by 2023 legal shenanigans that saw dozens of crew members sue for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Until such things are settled, Travolta's potential chance of a comeback is sitting on a shelf somewhere. At least there's always the possibility of self-parody. In December 2023, he appeared in a Capital One advert that managed to imagine what Saturday Night Fever's Tony Manero would be doing if he turned into Santa, and it had more wit and charm in its brief span than in any film he's made that runs a hundred times the length. The actor seldom gives interviews these days – less out of unreachability and more because he has little noteworthy to promote – and his Instagram account is mainly devoted to pictures of his family, including his daughter, the actress and singer Ella Bleu. There have been occasional complaints of unsavoury behaviour, but any court cases brought against him have been consistently dismissed. Although his public eccentricities – referring to singer Idina Menzel as ' Adele Dazeem ' during the Oscars, for instance, and planting an enthusiastic kiss on a stone-faced Scarlett Johansson – are well known, they are the stuff of hilarity, rather than cancellation. Still, he keeps himself busy, after a fashion, when he isn't spending a few weeks at a time making appalling films. He was seen at the Paris Olympics with Ella last year, where – naturally – he flew himself in on his private jet, and later uploaded a brief 'what I did on my holidays' montage to his Instagram account. He has befriended the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for reasons best known to himself. In his first wilderness period in the Eighties, Travolta famously danced with Princess Diana at the White House in 1985, so there is at least precedent of sorts for this association. (Although it remains to be seen whether Harry and Meghan ever find themselves taking up the Scientology that Travolta is said still to practice.) Celebrity gossip has linked him with Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis. Some may not care what Travolta does next, and certainly, he has exhausted the patience of all but his most loyal admirers. But Hollywood loves a comeback, and the actor's return in 1994 with Pulp Fiction was one of the most spectacular in Hollywood. Tarantino remains consistent in his admiration for Travolta as an actor, praising his performance in Brian de Palma's Hitchcockian thriller Blow Out a matter of a couple of months ago, and there have been rumours that the filmmaker is keen to cast his former Vincent Vega in whatever his final film turns out to be. Whether he can manage to rise from direct-to-streaming death for a second time, courtesy of Tarantino or another A-lister, or whether he's stuck in the Randall Emmett closet for all eternity remains to be seen.
