After giving several hits in a row last year, suddenly Katrina Kaif has little to look forward to this year.

A source close to the actress reveals, “Most of Katrina’s movies have been romcoms or commercial cinema. This year she has Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti, which is more serious cinema compared to her other movies. She wants to broaden her horizons and work for issue-based films, like the ones Madhur Bhandarkar does. Katrina likes all his films, more so because they are women-centric. Also, his lead actresses have won accolades for their performance and that has boosted their career graph. She has been sending him feelers.”

Meanwhile unconfirmed reports say that Katrina is being signed for the sequel of Dostana by Dharma Productions, besides Imtiaz Ali’s next opposite Ranbir Kapoor and Farah Khan’s Tees Maar Khan. But our source says, “Apart from Rajneeti, which releases this year, Katrina has just one project in hand, the Abbas Mustan remake of The Italian Job. A lot of projects have been spoken about, but as of now nothing has been signed officially.”

Apparently what could be a trigger for Katrina is the fact that her closest competitors, Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor, have a sufficient number of movies lined up and are also experimenting with different genres. “Not to be left behind in the rat race, Katrina is making her moves to remain in the top bracket,” adds the source.

But when contacted, Katrina said, “Not true at all. I am pretty tied up with my films already.” When quizzed whether she’s been in touch with Madhur, Katrina said, “No. I have not connected with him.” Despite repeated calls and messages, Bhadarkar remained unavailable for comment.