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Chris Hansen isn’t holding back anymore. The former host of To Catch A Predator spent weeks trying to look neutral about Primetime – the A24 film that dramatizes his old sting operations – but that act is over. He’s now calling the movie an “insult.”
The film premiered in Venice earlier this week to strong reviews, currently sitting at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Robert Pattinson’s performance as Hansen is already generating awards buzz, which isn’t surprising given how much attention his impression of Hansen got when the first trailer dropped.
That’s sort of where things started going sideways.
Hansen’s relationship with the project soured fast after that trailer came out. He refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement and got turned away from a screening because of it. Then he bought ad space outside theaters showing the film — promoting his own predator-hunting streaming service, no less.
Now he’s escalated things further. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hansen didn’t mince words, calling Primetime a “complete work of fiction” that unfairly reframes his investigations as some kind of psychological horror story.
“You still have something that is a complete work of fiction attached to a real name. Based upon what I’ve seen in the trailer and my understanding of what has been written about the film, they wanted to create something much darker and way more dramatic,” Hansen said.
He didn’t stop there. Hansen argued that his work actually protected kids and put real predators behind bars — and that turning it into what he sees as a horror film misses the point entirely.
“I think it’s an insult to the thousands of men and women who work hard every day to protect children from predators. They turn something that is very positive, very challenging and not without risk into what is essentially a horror film,” he continued.
Then things got pointed. Hansen brought up Harvey Weinstein by name, framing the whole situation as Hollywood being predatory in its own way.
“I guess it’s not surprising that a Hollywood studio would act in such an exploitive or predatory manner. We’re talking about an industry that was led by perhaps one of the biggest predators to walk the planet, Harvey Weinstein. They’ll all pat each other on the back and say, ‘What a great job. This is really dark and mysterious and intriguing.’”
The Conradt Case
At the center of the film is a real tragedy — the 2006 suicide of Bill Conradt, a Texas prosecutor who shot himself as police showed up at his house. He’d been chatting online with someone he believed was a minor, but who was actually a decoy working with Hansen’s show.
The incident drew heavy criticism at the time. Many saw it as proof that the show’s tactics had gone too far, and it’s widely credited with ending To Catch A Predator‘s run entirely.
Hansen, for his part, still defends the show’s overall impact despite that outcome.
“The positive effects of this work far outweigh the negatives,” Hansen said of the incident.
Whereas Hansen sees the project as exploitative, A24 clearly sees awards potential — Pattinson’s performance is already being talked about as a possible Oscar contender. The supporting cast includes Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, and Bokeem Woodbine, rounding out what’s shaping up to be one of the studio’s higher-profile fall releases.
Primetime hits theaters on September 25, courtesy of A24.
