The talented Anil Sharma, who recently got the Deol family together with the film 'Apne' starring Dharmendra and his sons Sunny and Bobby Deol, is now looking for a solo male lead for his next project, away from the 'Deol' territory!

It is hard to believe that Anil is looking for greener pastures and is most likely to sign the very popular Saif Ali Khan as the solo lead instead.

Is Anil Sharma tired of the 'Deol' punches in his movies? Well, if we take a closer look at the director's resume, we can find that all his initial films based on the run-on-the-mill formula like 'Garam-Dharam', 'Farishtey', 'Hukumat', 'Elaan-E-Jung' were scripted for Dharmendra or his sons..

The director followed with this trend and went on to give the masses a big hit 'Gadar Ek Prem Katha' starring the gutsy Sunny Deol.

After the success of Gadar, there was no looking back for the team, and the director could not even dream of casting any other actor other than the Deols. He went on to make films like 'Hero' and 'Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo' and then came the film bringing together the old and new, 'Apne'.

One cannot stop from wondering why Anil has opted to leave the Deol clan even after 'Apne' did a good job at the box-office.. Is all fine between him and the family?

The Bitch's source says, "Anil Sharma has been working on his next film after 'Apne' for more than six months now. And yes, he wants Saif Ali Khan to play the lead role. In fact, the talks are already on. We will make announcements only when something concrete."

What about working with the Deols in future? The director chose to remain unavailable and did not even attend to repeated calls and messages from the Bitch.

In between all this, a source reveals, "It's not that he has something against signing them. He is extremely comfortable with them. He will surely work with them again after this project."

It surely looks like Anil Sharma does not want to rely more on the Deol camp and wants to strive hard and gain success for himself, minus the family's help!

As we wish the director all the luck and await the result of this fresh change, we guess the Deols will also be keeping a keen eye on the director's fate!!