Chris Hansen, the Metro Detroit native who spent years confronting men on hidden camera for To Catch a Predator, says he has not ruled out suing A24 over Primetime, the Robert Pattinson film that dramatizes his life and career. Hansen has not even seen the movie, but he is already accusing the studio of exploiting his name and brand without his permission.
Hansen made the comments to SiriusXM radio host Dan Abrams, who asked him directly on August 26 whether he planned to sue A24, according to Deadline Detroit. Hansen told Abrams that people are looking into the matter, and an entertainment-law source told the outlet that Hansen probably has a decent case. Primetime, produced by A24 and directed by Lance Oppenheim, is based on Hansen and his former NBC show, and Pattinson plays Hansen in the film, which premiered in competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival ahead of its nationwide U.S. theatrical release on September 25, according to Vanity Fair.
A Screening He Never Got to See
Hansen refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement A24 wanted him to sign before he could attend a private screening, and he was ultimately turned away from that screening, per the same account. He said A24 could have produced a fictional movie without using his name, and he suggested Primetime exploits his name and brand for profit without his permission, describing the studio's conduct as exploitative, sneaky, and disingenuous. He also asked why A24 did not tell him about the film earlier.
The dispute over the paperwork has played out publicly in conflicting terms. Excerpts of the NDA that Hansen provided to media outlets showed broad liability waiver clauses releasing A24 from future legal claims, while studio sources relayed by TMZ countered that it was a standard pre-screening NDA provided a week in advance, intended to prevent spoilers from leaking, and that Hansen never requested edits to it. Hansen said the movie he is being accused of not wanting audiences to see is actually one he has not even watched himself, adding that A24 could turn his protest into promotion.
Fighting the Film With His Own Ad Buy
Rather than sit quietly, Hansen has turned the movie's own marketing cycle against the studio. He spent a reported $100,000 to purchase 30-second preshow ad spots running before every U.S. screening of Primetime, using his signature catchphrase Take a seat right over there to steer moviegoers toward his own streaming network, TruBlu, according to The Hollywood Reporter. An earlier draft of that ad reportedly included a line warning audiences that Primetime was a Hollywood fantasy version of real events, but the sentence was cut before distribution over concerns about legal retaliation from A24, the outlet reported. Hansen plans to run additional commercials in theaters before Primetime screenings and will use the moment to promote TruBlu, the streaming network he co-founded that focuses on crime content, including his series Takedown with Chris Hansen, his latest version of To Catch a Predator.
Hansen's other current projects include the podcasts Predators I've Caught, which deals with sexual predators, and Have a Seat with Chris Hansen, which features interviews with notable people. Hoodline has previously reported on Hansen's continued work with local law enforcement, including a joint sting with the Harford County Sheriff's Office in Maryland that netted 21 arrests between late 2025 and mid-2026, part of a pattern of stings in which law enforcement targeted men seeking sex with minors who turned out to be decoys.
From WXYZ to National Television
Hansen, 66, is a Metro Detroit native who graduated from Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills and from Michigan State University. Before his national television career, he worked as an investigative reporter for WXYZ and WDIV in Detroit. He joined NBC in 1993 and went on to star in To Catch a Predator starting in 2004, a Dateline NBC franchise that showed him working alongside law enforcement to confront men who arrived expecting to meet minors. He now splits his time between Michigan and New York.
NBC discontinued To Catch a Predator in December 2007, though reruns with case updates continued airing for another couple of years. The show's end followed the November 2006 suicide of Texas prosecutor Bill Conradt during a police raid taped by Dateline NBC crews, a tragedy that triggered a $105 million lawsuit by Conradt's estate that NBC settled out of court in June 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times. The original series had debuted in November 2004 in partnership with the volunteer internet watchdog group Perverted-Justice, generating more than 200 indictments across 12 televised sting operations over three years, according to the Seton Hall Law Review.
What A Lawsuit Would Face in Court
Any lawsuit Hansen files would run into a steep legal climb. Under New York Civil Rights Law Sections 50 and 51, courts generally shield creators of docudramas depicting real public figures under a First Amendment newsworthiness exception, making right-of-publicity lawsuits difficult to win unless the work is proven to be substantially fictionalized or produced with actual malice, according to the American Bar Association. Studios routinely produce unauthorized biopics of public figures under those same protections without acquiring life rights or paying the subject.
Not everyone connected to the film has taken an adversarial tone toward Hansen. Speaking at the Venice premiere, Pattinson praised Hansen's magnetic screen presence and credited Hansen's original work as the reason audiences remain fascinated by To Catch a Predator two decades later, according to IndieWire. Primetime was filmed in New Orleans in early 2025 under the working title Bluefin Tuna and features musician Phoebe Bridgers in her screen acting debut alongside cast members Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and Bokeem Woodbine, per Entertainment Weekly.
Whether Hansen's frustration turns into a filed lawsuit or stays confined to his pre-show ad campaign remains an open question. For now, he has confirmed only that he has not ruled out legal action, while directing his energy — and his ad dollars — toward promoting TruBlu ahead of the film's September 25 release.
