/> Having developed his muscles, tattooed his forearm and formed a steely determination to move away from the lover-boy image, Aftab Shivdasani has signed a 3-film deal with Sanjay Gupta's production house.

Apart from signing Aftab in a gritty Chicago-based production called Jazbaa, which will be shot in the summer, Gupta plans to utilize Shivdasani in other gritty ways in the coming months.

Gupta has also got Aftab a film with Tigmanshu Dhulia which is a remake of the real-time real-guts cops movie Training Day for which which Denzel Washington had got an Oscar for best actor. The role of a villainous cop would require Shivdasani to go all-out in a negative role.

So is Shivdasani, currently struggling to keep foothold in the film industry, Sanjay Gupta's new blue-eyed boy?

Laughs the producer, "Well....Arjun is more my blue-eyed boy than Aftab. But I really believe in Aftab Shivdasani and Arjun Rampal. I believe they've been doing the wrong kind of films and have a long way to go."