Chris Hansen Is Buying Ads for His Network to Play Before Every Showing of“ ”Robert Pattinson’s “Primetime”

Chris Hansen previously said on Aug. 20 that he has not yet seen ‘Primetime,’ based on his own ‘Dateline NBC’ series ‘To Catch a Predator’

NEED TO KNOW

• Former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen has purchased advertising space at every movie theater showing Robert Pattinson’s new movie Primetime, which is based on Hansen’s time hosting the Dateline NBC segment
• Hansen said in an Aug. 20 appearance on Fox News that he has not yet screened Primetime because, as he claimed, lawyers from distributor A24 asked him “to sign away my rights to my name, image, and brand, essentially” before viewing the movie
• Robert Pattinson portrays Hansen in Primetime, which hits theaters Sept. 25

When moviegoers see Robert Pattinson portray former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in the new movie Primetime, they will also be treated to a message from Hansen, 66, himself before the movie.

The Hollywood Reporter reported on Wednesday, Aug. 26, that Hansen has purchased advertising space on every screen showing the movie to promote his streaming network TruBlu, where he conducts similar investigations to the ones seen in his series To Catch a Predator in the 2000s.

According to THR, the commercial shows Hansen in a kitchen, where he addresses the audience directly by saying, “I’m going to need everyone in the theater to take a seat right over there,” a similar phrase to what he would tell men he confronted on To Catch a Predator.

“Now there are more platforms than ever before where this disturbing crime is being committed,” Hansen says in the ad, per THR. “Join us undercover every day on my streaming network, TruBlu.”

The outlet also reported that Hansen intended to finish the commercial by stating that the events depicted in Primetime are “a Hollywood fantasy version” of real-life events, citing anonymous sources. According to THR, the line was removed due to concern about potential backlash from the movie’s distributor A24.

Primetime is partially based on a 2007 Esquire article titled “Tonight on Dateline, This Man Will Die” and dramatized from Hansen’s time hosting To Catch a Predator.

The Esquire piece covers a Texas district attorney named Bill Conradt, who died by suicide in 2006 when Hansen and Dateline’s cameras, as well as law enforcement, attempted to apprehend him at his home as part of an operation covered by the program.

Trailers for the movie appear to show Pattinson, 40, in character as Hansen as he prepares to confront a pedophile portrayed by Skyler Gisondo. “In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history,” reads an official synopsis for the film.

In an Aug. 17 interview with podcast Annie Elsie, Hansen said he has not been consulted on the movie. On that date, Hansen said he was scheduling a private screening for the film, though he questioned the “motive” behind the story.

When Hansen appeared on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime on Aug. 20 to discuss the movie, he said he did not sit through the film after declining “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.”

“I couldn’t sign that. So they didn’t show me the film. I went all the way over there — you and I are going to have to go to the theater and see it together when it comes out, I guess,” Hansen said on Fox News. “But who’s going to sign something like that? I wouldn’t sign it just to see it.”

“So this was a very restrictive agreement. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. . . if you look at the trailer, obviously, it’s a very dramatized version,” he continued. “They have told me that it’s fictionalized in many aspects. I know other people have seen it who didn’t sign an NDA, and yet they wanted me to sign it.”

Hansen’s To Catch a Predator originally ran for 20 episodes that aired on NBC between 2004 and 2007. The series was canceled in 2008.

He has produced spiritual successors to To Catch a Predator, including the news magazine Crime Watch Daily and his currently running Takedown with Chris Hansen on TruBlu.

Pattinson’s new movie also costars Merritt Wever, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine and singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers in her debut film acting performance.

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Primetime makes its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 5 and releases in theaters Sept. 25.

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