Primetime hasn’t even hit cinemas yet, and already the story surrounding it has taken a strange turn. Robert Pattinson is playing Chris Hansen in A24’s new drama, while the real former To Catch a Predator host has questioned Hollywood’s motives, disputed what he’s seen in the trailers, explored his legal options — and even bought advertising space to run directly in front of screenings of the film.

So, what exactly has been happening between Hansen, Pattinson and Primetime? We take a deeper look at Hansen’s objections, the screening dispute, the legal questions, his pointed ad campaign and what Pattinson and director Lance Oppenheim have been saying about the story they’re trying to tell.

Why Hansen Is Wary of Hollywood’s Version

Directed by Lance Oppenheim and written by Ajon Singh, Primetime draws heavily from Hansen’s years fronting To Catch a Predator, the enormously successful Dateline NBC investigations that used decoys, hidden cameras and sting operations to confront men who believed they were arranging sexual encounters with minors.

Hansen wasn’t involved in making the film and has said he only learned about the project after production was completed. Speaking on the Serialously With Annie Elise podcast, he was careful not to completely condemn something he hadn’t watched, but openly questioned why his real identity was being used.

“My suspicion is that they used my name because it helps in a commercial enterprise,” Hansen said.

He also joked that he had been busy “being the real Chris Hansen” and didn’t have much time to spend worrying about the fake one. Behind the joke was a genuine concern about how far the filmmakers were prepared to push a fictionalised version of his work while still calling the character Chris Hansen.

His reaction to Pattinson himself has been more measured. In an Entertainment Tonight interview, as Variety reported, Hansen said that “while I think it’s overly dramatic, I think there is a pretty good imitation there in the trailer.” His wife and family, he said, seem to agree.

In the same interview, Hansen was more critical when discussing the characterisation itself. “He’s saying things I never said and doing things I never did, and that’s not who I am,” he said, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Hansen has repeatedly argued that audiences need to understand they’re watching a heavily dramatised film rather than a straightforward recreation of the investigations that made him famous.

The Screening That Never Happened

A24 eventually arranged a private screening for Hansen at its Manhattan offices on August 20, but the screening fell apart before the film started. Hansen refused to sign an agreement presented to him beforehand, claiming it could affect rights relating to his name, image and brand, as well as potential legal remedies arising from the film.

“I couldn’t sign that, so they didn’t show me the film. I went all the way over there,” Hansen said during an appearance on Jesse Watters Primetime.

There are sharply different accounts of what Hansen was actually being asked to sign. He has characterised the document as far more restrictive than something he was prepared to agree to, while a source involved with the film told the Los Angeles Times that it was a standard nondisclosure agreement for someone being shown an unreleased movie, designed to prevent spoilers and protect the film before release. Hansen’s public criticism therefore continues to be based on trailers, promotional material and what he understands about the film rather than the completed movie.

Could Hansen Take Legal Action?

Hansen has also acknowledged that his legal options are being looked at, although he hasn’t filed a lawsuit. During an appearance on The Dan Abrams Show, he discussed advice he had received from one entertainment lawyer, as TheWrap reported.

“People are looking at it,” Hansen said, before recalling the lawyer telling him: “You probably have a decent case. How much time do you want to spend doing it?”

Hansen has also pushed back on the idea that he’s simply looking for a payday, telling the Los Angeles Times that he wants clearer acknowledgement that his name and identity are being used inside a largely fictionalised story.

“I want some recognition that they used my name, image, and likeness in a largely fictional story,” Hansen said.

He has also suggested that money could instead be contributed to organisations supporting victims of child predators.

Hansen Is Buying Ads in Front of Primetime

Whatever his feelings about the movie, Hansen isn’t letting the attention surrounding it go to waste. Hansen and TruBlu have purchased preshow advertising that will run exclusively ahead of Primetime for at least the first four weeks of its theatrical run, meaning audiences turning up to watch Robert Pattinson play Chris Hansen will first hear from Chris Hansen himself.

TheWrap reports that the campaign will also include advertising in theatre lobbies. The spot opens with Hansen riffing on the line that became synonymous with his confrontations on To Catch a Predator: “I’m going to need everyone in the theater to take a seat right over there.” The ad then promotes TruBlu, where Hansen continues conducting predator investigations through Takedown With Chris Hansen alongside the network’s wider true-crime programming.

It’s a smart bit of positioning. Primetime is gathering an audience already interested in Hansen, his methods and the television phenomenon that made him famous, while Hansen is using that same audience to point viewers towards the work he’s doing now.

There’s also something fitting about the fact that a film partly concerned with the way To Catch a Predator blurred journalism and entertainment is now providing Hansen with a platform to advertise the continuation of that work two decades later.

Pattinson Responds at Venice

Hansen’s reaction inevitably came up when Primetime arrived at the Venice Film Festival, where Pattinson was asked directly about his reaction during the film’s September 5 press conference.

Pattinson didn’t fire back. Instead, he sounded genuinely complimentary about the man he had spent so much time studying.

“I hope he likes the movie,” Pattinson said at the Venice press conference, according to TheWrap. “I’d hope that the amount of inspiration his character has given so many of us involved in this comes across as some kind of compliment.”

Pattinson also spoke about the extensive research that went into building the performance. “There’s something magnetic about his presence,” Pattinson told Variety. “I watched the show when I was younger and didn’t think about it.”

He went on to describe a “strange alchemy” behind Hansen’s appeal and the fact that, around 20 years later, people are still watching, quoting, impersonating and making memes from To Catch a Predator. Pattinson suggested that elusive quality was something the filmmakers were trying to capture rather than simply delivering a straight impersonation.

Director Oppenheim has spoken with similar fascination about Hansen, describing him as a journalist, entertainer and even an artist whose programme combined real investigations with highly constructed television elements: decoy houses, hidden cameras, food waiting on tables and Hansen entering at precisely the right moment.

In the same interview with TheWrap, Oppenheim said To Catch a Predator was one of the first mainstream programmes he remembered seeing that mixed “truth and fiction, artifice and reality”.

What Primetime Is Actually Exploring

That distinction matters because Primetime isn’t being positioned as a conventional Chris Hansen biopic. The film takes inspiration from To Catch a Predator and Luke Dittrich’s 2007 Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die”, which examined the controversial 2006 Texas sting involving assistant district attorney Bill Conradt Jr., who died by suicide as police arrived at his home.

Rather than simply recreating Hansen’s career, the film uses that history to explore the increasingly murky line between journalism, policing, ratings and entertainment.

Pattinson described To Catch a Predator at Venice as groundbreaking television that was effectively “breaking the rules” of the medium. Oppenheim similarly told Reuters that he had long been fascinated by the theatricality surrounding something dealing with such a dark subject.

That’s also where the tension between Hansen and the filmmakers becomes most interesting. Oppenheim and Pattinson appear fascinated by the strange television creation Hansen helped build and the questions it raised about news becoming entertainment. Hansen’s concern is that once a fictionalised movie puts his real name on its protagonist, audiences may have difficulty separating those ideas from what he actually said and did.

For now, Hansen and the filmmakers remain on very different sides of the debate. Pattinson hopes he eventually likes the film, Oppenheim has publicly invited him to finally “have a seat” and see it, and Hansen wants audiences to know that what they’re watching shouldn’t be treated as documentary truth. In the meantime, he’s making sure anyone heading into Primetime gets at least a few seconds with the real Chris Hansen first.

Primetime also stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine and Anna Faris. A24 will release the film in US cinemas on September 25. Australian audiences can catch it in cinemas from October 29.

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