It began with umbrage over the bread rolls. In the early stages of the movie's pre-production, a dinner meeting was arranged between Anderson and Tim Bevan, co-founder and co-chairman of Working Title. According to Anderson, when he sat down at the table, Bevan announced that he had another commitment and left his guest to talk with two colleagues. "I should have walked out there and then," Anderson reflects. "But I didn't want to be rude. And then, about three days later, I got a very short letter from Tim telling me that they had enough creative people on board and that they couldn't offer me anything. And I thought, right, that's the biggest insult I've ever had in my life. I didn't read the script. I just cut myself off from the whole thing."

Perhaps Anderson should be grateful that Working Title's acquisition of Thunderbirds pushed him back into the arms of the Captain. Of all the shows on his CV, it seems most attuned to our times. Whereas Thunderbirds expresses the cheery utopianism of the Marshall Plan and the League of Nations, Scarlet's adventures take place on more uncertain territory. His world is one in which the Mysterons - an intangible, unknowable force - are using a network of terrorist cells to wreak havoc on Earth. The parallels are not lost on Anderson's production team. One office door at the studio bears a sign declaring: "Captain Scarlet - the War on Terror has Begun!"