Unaffected by the box-office failure of Yuvvraaj, Salman Khan’s last movie with producer-director Subhash Ghai, the actor has agreed to star in Ghai’s next venture.

Rumours about their reunion started making the rounds 10-15 days ago when the actor and the filmmaker were spotted toget outside Whistling Woods, a film school owned by Subhash, deep in conversation.

The filmmaker, who will be releasing Nauka Doobi’s Hindi dubbed version, Kashmakash, this Friday, confirms the speculations. “Salman is not the slightest bit affected by hits and flops. He never uses that as a benchmark to decide whether he wants to work with a producer-director or not,” he said. “I agree that Yuvvraaj didn’t work as well as we had expected it to. But I’m proud of the film because I attempted to do something different.”

When asked whether he would direct the new film himself, Ghai replies the project is still in its nascent stages.

“I’m really happy that Salman has agreed to work in another Mukta Arts production. He’s always been very approachable and unbiased,” the filmmaker beams. “We are contemplating whether I should direct or pass the project on to another pair of able hands. I can’t speak about the subject and the rest of the cast until everything is confirmed.”

Industry buzz is that Salman has greenlit Motherland, the film that Ghai had intended to produce and direct many years ago with Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan playing pivotal roles. Insiders close to the veteran filmmaker reveal that he intended to flag off the film on Dilip Kumar’s birthday but the plan fell through twice in a row.

“It was an excellent patriotic subject. It’s true that I was planning to announce Motherland on Dilip saab’s birthday. One year, it didn’t happen for some reasons. I thought it would work out the next year. But my movie’s stars kept going back and forth on dates. So it didn’t make sense to wait beyond a point,” sighs Ghai.

He insists that this Salman starrer is not Motherland, but a completely new script. “That movie has been shelved. It’s dead and will never return,” he concludes.