Robert Pattinson Channels Chris Hansen in 'Primetime', a Dark Take on 'To Catch a Predator'

Robert Pattinson leads "Primetime," a new film that dramatizes NBC Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" and the sting operation whose controversies eventually led to its cancellation. The actor said he was struck, on first reading the script, that such a story had not already been adapted for the screen.

At its centre is Chris Hansen, the newsman who became a pop-culture fixture as the show's host, known for the catchphrase "Have a seat." The film, directed by Lance Oppenheim, is described as more fever dream than biopic — a dark meditation on performance, media and morality rather than a conventional retelling.

"To Catch a Predator" became a phenomenon after its 2006 debut. Working with the citizen watchdog group Perverted Justice, the programme staged confrontations with men accused of soliciting sex with minors in online chat rooms. Group members posed as underage children online and invited the adults to fake houses, where actors played the teenagers and cameras recorded the encounters while police waited outside to make arrests.

Within two years, the show was drawing an average of about seven million viewers an episode, and Hansen had become a celebrity in his own right. Then, in November 2006, one suspect, Louis William "Bill" Conradt Jr., an assistant district attorney in Texas, killed himself as a local police SWAT team entered his home with a television crew outside. The episode led to a lawsuit that was settled out of court and to journalistic investigations, including by ABC's "20/20" and Esquire's Luke Dittrich, whose article inspired Ajon Singh's screenplay. By 2008, the show had been cancelled.

Pattinson, who was initially involved in developing the project through his production company before taking the lead role, said he was drawn to how a serious news reporter was recast as the centre of the story. He noted that once a show reaches a certain level of viewers or money, the subject matter can cease to matter and the programme is judged by commercial expectations alone. To prepare, he spent long hours watching Hansen on video and listening to his podcast.

The film blends fiction and reality. Merritt Wever plays a fictionalised producer under pressure to deliver ratings that could compete with "Lost," while former NBCUniversal TV Group chief executive Jeff Zucker appears as himself. Skyler Gisondo plays Decoy Dan, an amalgamation of the adult actors cast to portray teenagers in the staged houses — a role that becomes a focal point for the tension between journalism and entertainment.

Gisondo said the part took him far outside his comfort zone and that he was initially taken aback by laughter from the audience at moments when his character is at his lowest during the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival. With distance, he said, he sees the contrast between the gravity of the subject and the outlandishness of the show's setup, and finds something heartbreakingly funny in Dan's naivety.

Hansen has been vocal in his objections to the film, calling it an "insult" without having seen it, questioning the motivations of the filmmakers and the studio A24 for using his name, and suggesting Denis Leary for the role. He also described the Esquire article as "a bit of a hit piece" and bought pre-show advertising for his true-crime streaming network TruBlu to run before screenings of "Primetime." Pattinson said he was not surprised that Hansen has been discussing the film, though he was struck by the level of attention it has received, and noted that continued debate over the ethics of a two-decade-old television show is remarkable in itself.

"Primetime" opens in theatres Friday and in the U.K. on October 30. For Pattinson, it caps a strong year that also includes "The Drama," "The Odyssey" and the forthcoming "Dune: Part Three," alongside continued work on "The Batman" sequel. He said he does not let such questions add to any anxiety about turnout, describing his career's baseline as one where nobody sees his movies, so everything is a nice surprise.