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Legal action being considered against Robert Pattinson film Primetime from real-life subject Chris Hansen
Pattinson has been tipped for potential awards contention for his portrayal of the To Catch a Predator host.
A24
- Patrick Cremona
Published: Friday, 28 August 2026 at 11:57 am
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An American TV show host who is set to be played by Robert Pattinson in a hotly-anticipated upcoming film has said he is considering legal action against the movie.
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Chris Hansen – who presented the hugely successful reality series To Catch a Predator between 2004 and 2007 – is the subject of Primetime, which will debut at next month's Venice Film Festival.
The narrative feature debut of acclaimed documentarian Lance Oppenheim, the film is based on a 2007 Esquire article titled Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die and will also star Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and musician Phoebe Bridgers.
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The first trailer for the film was released earlier in August and has already convinced some pundits that Pattinson could be a major contender during awards season – but not everyone has been quite so taken by his portrayal.
Indeed, when asked during an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Dan Abrams Show, "Are you considering legal action, with regard to the movie?", Hansen replied, "People are looking at it".
"One guy told me, somebody who’s very, very good at all this and very entrenched in entertainment law, he said, ‘You know, you can do that, and you probably have a decent case. How much time do you want to spend doing it?'" he said.
"And the thought process here is that, if you protest it too much, do they turn it into a promotional situation where, 'this is the movie Chris Hansen doesn’t want you to see'?" he continued.
"Well, in reality, it’s the movie Chris Hansen hasn’t even seen yet, so it’s a hard question to answer."
Watch trailer
He added that his issues revolved around what he considered to be the "ethical" issues of fictionalising his story which he said "feels very exploitive to me."
"It feels sneaky and disingenuous to me that they would do this and not even say, 'This is what we’re doing,'" he concluded.
This is not even the first time Hansen has spoken out against the movie since the trailer was released. He earlier explained how he had been invited to an advance screening of the film but that production company and distributor A24 asked him to sign "a very restrictive agreement" ahead of watching it.
A24 responded that the document was simply a regular NDA that it asks all preview audiences to sign when watching a film ahead of its premiere.
Meanwhile, Hansen has also revealed that he has purchased ad space before screenings of the film to place trailers for his true crime streaming network TruBlu.
The very brief official synopsis for Primetime simply reads: "In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history."
Primetime will be released in UK cinemas this autumn.
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Authors
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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