It began with a story in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's autobiography A Doctor In The House. Actor-producer Bront Palarae was reading a chapter on how Dr Mahathir was part of a plan to acquire a profitable Malaysian company from the British government back in 1981. The top secret operation was known as Dawn Raid.

“I was like ‘Wow, this is a cool story’. Then I encouraged a few friends who are executives in major production companies to turn the story into a movie. But none of them saw the potential,” he said in a WhatsApp interview with Star2.