It’s no secret that Chris Hansen isn’t the biggest fan of Primetime. Now he’s finally had a chance to see the finished film starring Robert Pattinson, the To Catch a Predator host has some notes. Directed by Lance Oppenheim, the new movie stars Pattinson as Hansen, tracking the rise of the NBC reality series in which men soliciting sex with minors were caught and confronted on camera. Primetime has run into controversy for its depiction of Hansen, not least from Hansen himself, who was not involved in its development. A24 reportedly didn’t approach him until May 2026 when the ad campaign ramped up, inviting him for a pre-release screening. However, in August, he said on Jesse Watters’ Primetime that he walked away without seeing it. “I was supposed to see it at 10 o’clock this morning at A24 offices,” he explained. “The lawyers at A24 wanted me to sign away my rights to my name, image and brand, essentially. As well as any potential legal rights that would come out of the movie.” A source with knowledge later told The Wrap that the NDA was just a standard document all preview audiences were required to sign to avoid spoilers. Still, Hansen acknowledged on the Serialously with Annie Elise podcast that he thought it would be “silly” for him to criticise a movie he hadn’t yet seen. But this is far from the only off-screen drama that’s been going down. Days after the failed screening, it was revealed that he had bought ads promoting his true crime streaming service TruBlu to play before Primetime for the first four weeks of its theatrical run. The service is home to Takedown with Chris Hansen, his spiritual successor to To Catch a Predator, which ended its run on NBC in 2007. “I’m going to need everyone in the theatre to take a seat right over there,” Hansen jokes in the ad, referencing his most famous catchphrase. Chris Hansen says Primetime is mostly ‘pure fiction’ Over the weekend, Hansen was finally able to see Primetime now that it’s out in the US, sharing his unfiltered opinion again with Jesse Watters, this time on his own podcast, Have a Seat with Chris Hansen. While talking, the podcast cuts to Hansen’s live reaction just moments after seeing it, where he said, “It was so bizarre and so in and out of reality. Obviously I’m not objective because the character is me, but it was so detached from reality or anything I’ve ever experienced then or now doing the investigations. I just think I’m not sure what the point of it was.” Hansen also spoke to other audience members, with one saying, “The idea that you’re worse than some of these pedophiles that are portrayed in the movie is absurd.” The host then replied, “98% of that movie that I just saw was pure fiction… very little of it took place in real life.” Later in the interview, Hansen acknowledged that there’s a “dark humour” element to what he does and sometimes he leans into that, adding: “But I think I do that in a way that’s appropriate and that is helpful in the storytelling.” However, he feels that there was “none” of his humour in Primetime. “I mean, this guy was so detached. This version of Chris Hansen, played by Robert Pattinson, was so detached, so unhinged, so dark, so unlikable. It’s upset my colleagues, present and former.” He also disputed numerous events depicted in the film, ultimately claiming, “Most of it is pure fiction. They mix in some reality here and there. At the end of the day, I wasn’t blown away by it either way. It’s a movie.” Closer to the end of the podcast, Watters asked whether Hansen may pursue legal action, but it doesn’t sound like he’s too keen on doing so. “In terms of legal action, some of the best lawyers in this part of the practice of law have looked at it and I think they’re eager to do something. I’m not sure that I’m eager to do something,” he explained. “I don’t want to turn this into the movie that Chris Hansen doesn’t want you to see. You can go see it and make up your own mind. And I’ll use it to my benefit for all the great projects and things we have in the works.” Why Primetime shows a different version of the To Catch a Predator host Credit: A24 Despite using Hansen’s real name, Oppenheim has been pretty open about the fact that Primetime was intended to blur the line between fact and fiction, depicting the larger-than-life version of the host audiences saw during To Catch a Predator’s fame. Speaking to W Magazine, the filmmaker explained, “As a kid, I was obsessed with it [To Catch a Predator]. I discovered it through South Park and all the parodies, because it was off the air by then. “Chris Hansen almost seemed like this guy with superhuman abilities. He could make one of these predators he’d caught in his manufactured, constructed reality do anything and obey the laws of a world where he was the most powerful person. “There was so much swagger. The catchphrases and one-liners felt like Scarface. ‘Have a seat’ was his version of ‘Say hello to my little friend.’ I didn’t know if I was watching a prank show like Punk’d, or a news show, or a circus with Chris Hansen as the ringleader. It was the first time I’d interacted with a bizarre media experiment that mixed truth and fiction.” Oddly enough, Primetime came about when Oppenheim’s wife bought him a $30 Hansen Cameo in 2024. “In the video, he asks me to have a seat, congratulates me on Spermworld, and then starts talking about all the new investigations he’s doing,” he continued. “I thought, this is the guy I grew up with, this crusading journalist. But now, he’s a strange, self-aware, hyper-performative version of himself. I started watching his other Cameos. In one, he called somebody a certified ‘flex offender’ instead of a certified sex offender. Credit: A24 “I was like, this is so weird – you can pay him $30, and he’s going to pretend you’re a child predator and then wish you happy birthday. What happened to the Chris Hansen I grew up with? Or was this always the Chris Hansen who existed?” Oppenheim elaborated on creating this over-the-top version of Hansen for the film, explaining why he didn’t involve the host in its creation. “I felt like I had everything I needed with the Cameo. Not to sound glib about it – I mean that earnestly,” he said. “I read his book, Protecting Your Children from Online Enemies Already in Your Home. I read his blog from that time. I talked to the hidden camera operator, Mitchell Wagenberg, who worked with him on To Catch a Predator and a lot of the hidden camera shows he tried to do after. “It almost felt like we were adapting the internet’s version of Chris Hansen rather than the real Chris Hansen. You can self-mythologise all you want, but at a certain point it becomes part of culture. “The Odyssey wasn’t told by Odysseus. This movie shouldn’t be told by Chris Hansen. It should be told by the fans of Chris Hansen, which is us.” For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: A24/Chris Hansen/YouTube Post navigation Next story
