The new trailer for the Robert Pattinson-led A24 movie Primetime has arrived.
Following his appearances in The Drama and The Odyssey, the next of Pattinson’s upcoming movies sees him revisiting one of the darkest corners of 2000s-era television. The actor produces and stars in Primetime as TV journalist Chris Hansen, who hosted To Catch a Predator under the Dateline NBC umbrella. From 2004 to 2007, across three seasons, Hansen anchored a series of sting operations against child predators across the United States recorded by hidden cameras.
Nearly 20 years after To Catch a Predator went off the air, Primetime is pulling the curtain back on the controversial news program. The first Primetime trailer teased this exploration at the end of May, and the newest trailer provides an intense look at Pattinson’s Hansen and the people in his orbit during this chapter of his life:
Pattinson is joined in Primetime by Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, and Bokeem Woodbine. Director Matt Oppenheim makes his narrative feature debut with this movie, having previously helmed the documentaries Some Kind of Heaven and Spermworld, as well as the HBO docuseries Ren Faire. Ajon Singh penned Primetime’s script.
Primetime’s psychological thriller tone is fitting given the dark subject matter To Catch a Predator covered. As laid out in the new trailer, this was one of the most popular TV shows of the 2000s, with Pattinson’s Hansen getting excited at the prospect of it being bigger than ABC’s Lost. However, as also previously mentioned, To Catch a Predator wasn’t without its controversies, as it was repeatedly hit with entrapment accusations and conflict of interest claims during its three seasons on the air.
Additionally, arguably the biggest controversy was the circumstances in which To Catch a Predator ended. On November 5, 2006, the show conducted a sting operation in Murphy, Texas, in partnership with Perverted-Justice. One of the suspects who solicited one of the actors pretending to be a minor online, but did not come to the sting house, was Kaufman County assistant district attorney Bill Conradt. When police arrived at Conradt’s home to execute search and arrest warrants, with the To Catch a Predator crew in tow, Conradt shot and killed himself.
One year after the suicide, Patricia Conradt, Bill Conradt’s sister, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against NBC, which was ultimately settled out of court. By 2008, NBC canceled To Catch a Predator, and Hansen later hosted spiritual successors Hansen vs. Predator and Takedown with Chris Hansen. The 2025 documentary Predators delved into To Catch a Predator’s history and Hansen’s similar work, as well as the numerous copycat shows that carry out their own child predator sting operations.
It remains to be seen how deeply Primetime will explore Bill Conradt’s death and its role in To Catch a Predator ending, if at all. Regardless, the movie opens in theaters on September 25, the same day as Universal Pictures’ Forgotten Island and Paramount Pictures’ Heart of the Beast, among others. After Primetime’s release, Pattinson will star as Scytale in Dune: Part Three, which re-teams with his The Drama and The Odyssey co-star Zendaya.
- Release Date
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September 25, 2026
- Runtime
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107 Minutes
- Director
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Lance Oppenheim