Robert Pattinson is doing something deeply cursed to his face, and A24 would like you to see it. The first clip from Primetime has arrived, and the studio’s Chris Hansen movie looks every bit as skin-crawling as promised.
For the blessedly uninitiated: Primetime stars Pattinson as a fictionalized version of the To Catch a Predator host, set in 2006 at the height of the show’s ratings reign. It’s based on the 2007 Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” which dug into the suicide of Bill Conradt — the Texas prosecutor who shot himself as cameras closed in — and the moral pileup that followed. So no, this is not a nostalgic rewatch. It’s a psychological crime thriller about what happens when catching bad people becomes a prime-time business model, and everyone involved starts performing for the lens.
The clip leans hard into that unease. Pattinson’s Hansen is less a journalist than a man slowly merging with his own silhouette — all whisper-voice menace and dead-eyed confidence. Pattinson reportedly spent months nailing the cadence, that signature stop-start delivery that made the real broadcasts so hypnotic and so queasy. It shows. Critics who caught the film at Venice, where it premiered September 5 in competition for the Golden Lion, have singled out the transformation as the whole show, with one review describing the character as “visibly diseased in the head” from frame one. High praise. Terrifying praise.
The director is Lance Oppenheim, making his narrative debut after the documentaries Some Kind of Heaven and Ren Faire, and he clearly has a thing for watching power curdle in enclosed ecosystems. He’s spoken openly about his obsession with how power is obtained and maintained — whether the petri dish is a retirement community, a Renaissance fair, or broadcast television. That’s a thesis statement. Around Pattinson: Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, and Bokeem Woodbine. Jeff Zucker, who oversaw programming at NBC at the time, reportedly plays himself and “really enjoyed it.” Of course he did.
Now for the delicious part. Hansen wanted nothing to do with the production — he wasn’t involved — so instead he bought pre-show advertising for every theatrical screening of Primetime. The ads drop him into one of those familiar sting-house kitchens and ask audiences to “take a seat” before plugging his own streaming service. He reportedly wanted to call the film a “Hollywood fantasy version” of events but was advised that might invite legal unpleasantness. Oppenheim’s response to the whole stunt? He’s “excited to hear what he has to say about it.” That’s not diplomacy. That’s a man pouring gasoline and handing out matches.
Is the movie on Hansen’s side? Not really. Is it against him? Also not really. That’s the point. Primetime looks like a film about a man who built an empire on other people’s ruin and never once blinked at the camera. The tragedy of Bill Conradt is the wound at the center of it, and the early word out of Venice is that Oppenheimer doesn’t let anyone — host, network, or audience — off the hook.
Wait, no. Oppenheim. See? The film is already messing with our heads.
Primetime opens in theaters September 25. If the clip is any indication, you’ll want to take a seat for this one. Just, you know, carefully.