Shahid's career finished. Can Salman's way save him?

Shahid Kapoor lost Maneesh Sharma's next project after working on the script with the director for six months. It was a disappointing deadend. The final blow came suddenly. The remake of the Tom Cruise starrer Knight & Day which director Siddharth Anand had planned almost to culmination with Shahid Kapoor has now gone to Hrithik Roshan.

And Shahid whose fan base remains miraculously uneroded despite the recent setbacks, has decided to do some drastic career-rethink.

We hear from reliable sources that the young dedicated actor would now be following Salman Khan's pattern of career management and has in fact signed up with Salman's agency Bling to ensure his career is back on track.

In the coming months, Shahid Kapoor won't be seen in public much. The actor whose recent films Mausam, Teri Meri Kahani have underperformed, has decided to take a long hard look at his career. And the results are already showing.

Not only is Shahid missing from public appearances he has lately signed up with Bling, the company that looks after the business interests of Salman Khan, to give that critical boost to his career.

In addition, Shahid has also decided to adopt an entirely new approach to new projects.

Says a source close to Shahid, `During the last one year Shahid has turned down 15 projects, among them Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Prakash Jha's Chakravyuha. He insisted on a complete hard-bound script from every filmmaker, big or small.

This naturally didn't go down well with the likes of Jha and Nair who have worked with the biggest names in Bollywood and abroad, without having to commit a full hard-bound script to the actor.

Only Aamir Khan used to demand a hard-bound script and he would even insist on signing every page of the script so that nothing was changed. That rigid system of working no longer works for any actor, not even Aamir.

The buzz surrounding Shahid's revamp is that the actor has decided to follow Salman's career-mould rather than Aamir's.

We hear Shahid would be a lot more flexible and relaxed in his approach to films and roles.

Raj Kumar Santoshi's new film Phata Poster Nikla Hero is the first film Shahid has signed without demanding a full script. He next goes into Prabhu Deva's Namak where he needs to completely re-define his physique and body language to do his his full-fledged action role.

Shahid would phase out his public appearances and will be seen very selectively until Santoshi's and Prabhu Deva's films are ready. Until then he has decided to stay as much out of the limelight as possible.