Robert Pattinson just dared you to take a seat. The first clip from Primetime is here, and it’s every bit as sweaty-palmed as you’d hope from the movie about the making of To Catch a Predator — the show that turned entrapment into appointment television.
A24 is releasing Primetime in theaters September 25, and the early footage suggests Lance Oppenheim’s narrative debut is not interested in letting anyone off the hook. Pattinson plays a fictionalized version of host Chris Hansen, prowling the set of a 2006 sting operation with that trademark blend of gravity and showmanship.
The film is inspired by the infamous Esquire piece about the suicide of Bill Conradt and its aftermath — the event that effectively detonated the franchise — and it loosely traces the production machinery behind television’s most uncomfortable hour.
If you’re wondering how you dramatize a show everyone remembers, the answer appears to be: from inside the machine. Oppenheim — who made the acclaimed documentary Ren Faire — directs from a script by Ajon Singh, with Ari Aster producing and Pattinson also serving as a producer. The supporting cast includes Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, and Bokeem Woodbine, with Jeff Zucker portraying himself — a detail that tells you exactly how self-aware this movie is.
The build-up to release has already been its own miniseries. Primetime premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival, where reviews singled out Pattinson’s transformation as something genuinely eerie — critics have called it extraordinary, creepier than the real thing. And then there’s Hansen himself, who was not involved in the film and has been openly skeptical of it.
His counter-move was pure Hansen: buying pre-show advertising at every theatrical screening to promote his own streaming service, complete with a kitchen-set spot inviting audiences to take a seat. He reportedly wanted the ads to end by calling Primetime a Hollywood fantasy version of events, but was advised against it. Oppenheim’s response was essentially: please, have a seat and watch it. Incredible. No notes.
That’s the delicious tension at the center of this movie. A24 is dramatizing a journalist-turned-brand, using his catchphrase, while the journalist uses the screenings to harvest viewers for his comeback platform. Somewhere, a media studies professor is weeping with joy.
The clip itself leans into dread over spectacle — lots of slow realization, lots of men caught in doorways, the morality play humming underneath. Based on true events, per the studio, which is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. This is a story with a real body count in its history, and the film seems determined to sit with the queasiness rather than the gotcha. The clip also confirms the film’s texture: fluorescent motel dread, procedural momentum, and Pattinson’s uncanny valley of a Hansen impression — the voice, the stillness, the moral theater.
So, September 25. A24’s streak of making audiences uncomfortable in beautiful ways continues, and Pattinson continues his run of choosing the strangest possible next move. He’s already Batman, a dead lighthouse keeper, and now the patron saint of televised stings. Fine. Take a seat indeed. Expect arguments through awards season. Just maybe don’t sit next to anyone while you watch it.