Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, Karan Johar
Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Karan JoharTwitter

Last year, it was announced that Salman Khan along with Akshay Kumar and Karan Johar would be collaborating for their dream project called Kesari. But Salman's sudden exit from the project had raised several eyebrows and sparked speculations of a possible tiff between the three big guns of Bollywood. And as Kesari is barely two weeks away from its theatrical release, the film's director Anurag Singh still isn't aware of why Salman had left Kesari and for what reasons.

"I am not aware of the discussions that took place behind closed doors. All I know is that one day, I was informed that Salman doesn't want to be a part of the film anymore," Anurag Singh told Mumbai Mirror in an interview.

Earlier, when Akshay Kumar was asked about the reason behind Salman's sudden exit, the Khiladi Kumar had just three words for it, "nahi ho paya (It couldn't happen)." Starring Akshay Kumar in the lead, Kesari was supposed to be co-produced by Salman Khan and Karan Johar.

Later, Salman too had clarified that he withdrew from Kesari as Karan Johar had already done work from casting to everything and that he didn't have any role in it.

"Karan has his home production and I have mine. He had come to me long back with the project, but he did all the work from casting to everything. I thought just adding my name was not right," Salman had told a daily earlier.

On a related note, Kesari, which also stars Parineeti Chopra in the lead, will hit the theatres on March 21. The movie is a war drama based on the 1987 Battle of Saragarhi, where an army of only 21 Sikhs faced 10,000 Afghans and won the battle.

The trailer of Kesari has intrigued the audience and it is expected to enjoy a good start at the box office.