The former "To Catch a Predator" host says the film depicts conversations that never happened.


Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen in Primetime.

Robert Pattinson has responded to Chris Hansen's Primetime criticism, saying he hopes the veteran journalist likes the movie.

Former To Catch a Predator host Hansen has distanced himself from the project, which was inspired by his work on the NBC series and stars Pattinson as the veteran journalist.

The movie dramatizes the making of the NBC show, which aired in the 2000s, and drew a large audience for its televised sting operations, in which Hansen came face-to-face with men who believed they were meeting minors for sex. The program faced legal and ethical scrutiny and ended after just 20 episodes.

The film is scheduled to open in theaters Sept. 25.

Speaking during a press conference for the film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, Pattinson said, "Obviously, I hope he likes the movie. There's something electrifying about him. I would hope the amount of inspiration his character has given a lot of people for years is some kind of compliment."

Variety reported that Pattinson called Hansen's presence "magnetic" and said he watched the show when he was younger. He added, "There's a strange alchemy — something he's doing is the reason people are still talking about that show 20 years later." The film received a 7-minute standing ovation at the premiere, has an early score of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and Pattinson is being considered a contender for his first Academy Award for the role.

Hansen previously called the movie "a work of fiction," and criticized the use of his likeness and image in events that he says never took place in real life. He said some elements potentially portray him — and others — unfairly in a negative light. Speaking on SiriusXM in August after watching the trailer, he said, "It's overly dramatic… How could they tell the story without having talked to anybody who was directly involved?"

He added, "The conversations you heard in the trailer never took place in real life."

Hansen told Fox News that he was invited to an advance screening of the film but refused to sign what he described as a "very restrictive agreement" with the movie studio A24. As a consequence, he said the studio told him he would not be able to watch it prior to release.

"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," he said. "I couldn't sign that, so they didn't show me the film… Who's gonna sign something like that?"

Sources close to Hansen told The Hollywood Reporter that he was consulting attorneys about whether to take further action.

A24 declined to comment. A source familiar with the matter said Hansen was asked to sign a standard nondisclosure agreement before seeing Primetime, but that it did not require him to waive rights to his name, image or brand. Hansen did not sign the agreement and therefore did not see the film, they said.

In August, The Hollywood Reporter also reported that Hansen had purchased preshow advertising on every screen showing the film, turning the movie into a promotional opportunity.

The commercial promotes Hansen's streaming service TruBlu, which focuses on true-crime programming and predator investigations. In the clip, the broadcaster says, "I'm going to need everyone in the theater to take a seat right over there," a reference to a signature line from To Catch a Predator.

Shawn Rech, president of TruBlu, told Entertainment Weekly the ad was "an opportunity to reach a very concentrated group of people who either know Chris or are going to know some version of Chris."

To Catch a Predator was canceled in 2008 amid fallout from a Texas sting involving a man who died by suicide. Hansen said in 2015 that the show had run its course, telling Time, "At the end of the day, we had proved our point."

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Posted by Temmy
Tue, September 08, 2026 2:16pm