Overview
- Primetime is an A24 dramatization adapted from Luke Dittrich’s 2007 Esquire article that revisits Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator and is set to open in U.S. theaters on Sept. 25.
- The film has won strong festival notice and awards conversation for Robert Pattinson’s performance, which producers say helped drive the movie’s publicity.
- Chris Hansen has publicly rejected the film’s portrayal, declined a studio preview NDA, purchased pre-screening ad time to promote his own coverage, and said he is consulting lawyers but has not filed a lawsuit or seen the finished picture.
- Director Lance Oppenheim and the filmmakers say they did not involve Hansen, instead using Hansen Cameo clips, his book and public interviews and conversations with former crew as source material.
- The movie rekindles broader questions about To Catch a Predator’s use of staged stings, the 2006 Bill Conradt suicide that anchors Dittrich’s reporting, and how 'humilitainment' mixes crime control with public shaming in ways that can produce legal and human harms.